1. Hey Guest, is it this your first time on the forums?

    Visit the Beginner's Box

    Introduce yourself, read some of the ins and outs of the community, access to useful links and information.

    Dismiss Notice

General Knight Changes

Discussion in 'Balance' started by Auburn, Sep 13, 2013.

  1. Klokinator

    Klokinator Such Beta
    1. Aphelion's Roleplay

    Messages:
    1,443
    If builders had better block placement and were accurate like in classic, and if archers either did a little more damage or had another heart of HP, the game would be perfectly balanced in my opinion.

    Well, except for this. It baffles me how kegs can destroy whole lines of doors, sometimes that are even outside the visible blast radius, while only dealing minimal damage to natural tiles and artificially made blocks. Should really be the other way around imo.

    I agreed with everything in your post except for this. Classic was a stab spam fest and it was fucking AWFUL. Stab spam is also fairly okay in beta too, often it gets me because I expect slashing opponents so I start slashing first on my last heart or two and die. You just need to get a bit better as knight and these won't be an issue anymore.

    Knights on high ground are stupidly OP sometimes yes, but they're counterable in most cases.


    Oh and I disagree about removing knight slashing on wooden structures. That's a massive change that will render wooden towers supreme. If you think archers will suddenly unleash volleys of fire arrows, even if they're cheaper than the current build, think again. The average newb archer is too dumb to buy items from shops lol.
     
  2. Monsteri

    Monsteri Slower Than Light Tester

    Messages:
    1,916
    All these things frustrate you simply because your buildings are bad and you suck as knight, some are outright stupidity. I loathe people who think classic's combat scheme was anyhow good.=Beelzebub
    Hah, kegs are easy to stop as well even though it's stupid that they explode from slashes. There are way, way better and more efficient methods to breach enemy bases, but they all require some level of thinking other than pressing D/A + W and then space, which is why you don't often see them in normal games.
    This I agree with. What's the point of directional shielding if one position covers you completely?
     
  3. franek123

    franek123 The architect of the royal castle. Donator Tester

    Messages:
    514
    Agree about knights but disagree about builders. As dude that probably killed more people with builder than you with all classes. Builder isnt weak. Just use drills, traps, boulders, ur fat ass, and of course falling spikes that insta-kill! And then you can hold off whole army :D (without keg)
     
  4. -Tj-

    -Tj- Sicarii Donator
    1. The Ivory Tower of Grammar-Nazis

    Messages:
    358
    Incase you havent figured it out yet bud, resources are spawned at the tent as a starter and usually dont last long during big matches, unless people dont use sed resources they just bulk up and sit there.

    Knights are fine as they are, just fix up the shield and it should be fine, kegs do damage to anything in its blast radius, whether it be stone, wood, rock, dirt or even trees. All of these things take damage to the blast, stone doors get blasted away and dirt blocks only take one hit to destroy. Thats not Op, thats the way kegs are, they were designed to do more damage to man made objects while doing the least amount of damage to natural blocks.

    The other two classes are support, Builder helps with defences and charging over enemy towers, archers support the overall bigman of the army, knights with there bomb arrows for clearing out structures or ballistas.

    So, if your saying knights are Overpowered, you need to re-read your statement and think this through, knights are the main muscle of any medieval army, archers draw support for them and builders help the team cross terrain that is unpassable by a standlone knight/archer.
     
  5. Beelzebub

    Beelzebub Ballista Bolt Thrower

    Messages:
    240
    "God Beelzebub you're just terrible at this game"

    >mfw you should kill yourself...in-game, obviously.

    "Kegs explode, therefore are balanced"

    >That's not my point about kegs. In case you missed what I said (which you did), they are still too cheap to buy and destroy doors much more easily than other terrain.

    "Knights should make up the bulk of a team"

    >They should. Where did I say they should not?

    "Resources only spawn at the start."

    >Uh, what? What game have you been playing? It doesn't appear to be KAG Beta. Every CTF game I've been in gives builders resources every 20 or 30 seconds.

    "Don't turn Beta into a jab-spam heaven."

    >I agree with that wholeheartedly. I simply think that slashing should not be the end-all be-all that it currently is.

    "Classic sucked."

    >u suk feg
     
  6. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    Yet classic wasn't a jab spam heaven, you could wreck jab spammers easily, especially because double slash was something of a reward just for slashing and knowing how to do it. Too umch else to bother commenting on, maybe I'll edit this later.
     
    Beelzebub likes this.
  7. Alpaca

    Alpaca Haxor

    Messages:
    462
    To anyone saying that builders are useless because of op things like kegs, bomb arrows, and fire arrows: (once again talking about tth, still haven't played ctf in forever, don't remember the prices, but yeah they may need to be changed a bit)

    Who do you think built the keg shop? A knight? Knights can't build. A builder made it. If your tower gets destroyed by a keg, or a catapult, or a bomb arrow, that isn't an op knight or archer destroying it, it's another builder. gg.
    As for CTF: don't remember the prices, haven't played in 5evar because pub ctf matches suck, only good if you're playing on a real team, and that's so hard to come by these days. Of what I do recall about the prices, I think that things may need to be nerfed a bit; make bomb arrow to keg price ratio proper, bomb arrows should be around, a good bit higher than but still around, 1/4 the price of kegs.

    I don't really remember how many resources you get at the beginning of CTF, if it's anywhere close to the amount you get in tth then the base prices atm are fine, if there's a serious shortage of supplies and you don't have a ton of mats on the map, then yeah, the prices for tower wrecking weapons could stand to be raised, it's kind of unfair to have something that can take out 3 blocks of stone when your walls are only 1 block wide.
    In regards to wood walls being under powered against knight jabs and fire arrows, or buildings being useless because of bombjumps: pliss, lrn2build right, making knight proof building is ez as long as you don't have a bunch of scrub teammates who take all of ur mats and use them to build a giant fuckin spike pit. If you do, then your problems are arising from having a bunch of scrub teammates, not from being under powered. Just cover all your shops in stone, and put a single stone door somewhere in the entry way. Bombjumping knight is suddenly useless.

    E:
    p.s. Knight combat gud now, not nearly as much slash whoring as in alpha, and for those whining about height advantages, not quite sure why you're trying to get that nerfed. You get a defensive advantage when defending a tower that your builders made you. The height advantage makes builders way more useful and important.

    For anyone saying it ruins knight vs knight combat: it's really not that hard to a) back away from a tower when you see them charging their slash, b) dodge their fall by wall jumping off the tower that they themselves are using, leaving them stunned on the ground for you to pick off easily.

    EE:
    oh, and I agree that boats and water are kind of dumb now that you can just swim through just as fast, if not faster. Longboats are now completely useless, and warboats are only useful for a respawn point, which often makes you lose the game in tth because it allows a single opponent who snuck past you to cap your hall while everyone is in the boat.

    I do not, however, agree that this would be fixed by making you slower in water. I want drowning to be buffed, so it's more like it was before, where if you're swimming with your head above water you'll still drown, not just if you're underneath. IMO there's really no point to the drowning feature atm, all you have to do to stop it is surface for a couple of seconds. Bring back old drowning, maybe make it take a little longer when you're at the surface, but no more perma swimming.

    for those of you complaining that jabs do not play a large enough role in knight combat anymore, and the only thing that matters is slashes, you are sorely mistaken. If you just stand still and try to slash someone, or just run straight at them, you are going to die. You can't just slash your way to victory: you need to have positioning.

    The new combat as it stands right now is all about positioning, and movement. With the new tricks that weren't in alpha like wall running, wall jumping, etc, positioning plays a more important role now more than ever, and while slashing is still important, IMO by far the most important things are TIMING your slashes AND movements well, and POSITIONING yourself properly.

    Positioning and movement play a huge role in increasing slash range and winning you fights, so no, it's not just about slashes. It's about moving around at the right times, in the right ways, and being in the right places, which is no wonder, seeing as how beta is much more movement based than alpha, with quicker moving and new movement based items and tricks.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2013
    Celia, Gurin and Monsteri like this.
  8. Monsteri

    Monsteri Slower Than Light Tester

    Messages:
    1,916
    I love your posts Alpaca.
     
    Alpaca likes this.
  9. tons0phun

    tons0phun Shipwright

    Messages:
    9
    Blue moon that I'm on the forum for KAG, so I thought I'd pitch in 2-cents on the topic.

    Knights in this game are objectively over-powered. Now as far as what I mean when I say overpowered, is they have too many independent capabilities which should belong solely to the other classes, and having so much independence is detrimental to which it causes team work between classes to be an option rather than a necessity.

    Builders...
    Obviously their main purpose is for creating fortifications and structures for their own team.
    As far as their offensive capabilities, they excel at destroying/breaching fortifications, as well as surpassing traps and walls by using platforms and ladders.

    Archers...
    Mobility and range are their greatest ally, granted that laying down is trivial when you still appear on the map.
    They are great base defenders, but they are also great for harassing enemy workers by getting around their fortifications. Their mobility is balanced by the fact that when confronted with melee combat, they generally must withdraw.

    Knights...
    Have all of the offensive capabilities of the other two classes, and arguably excel at them. [This is the big issue]
    Given that bombs are supplied endlessly at no cost from the proper shop, they can easily wear-down any stone defenses, as stone takes significantly longer to acquire and is in limited supply. Knights are even better at going straight through defenses than builders once kegs are present.
    Not only that, but they can use bombs to jump up and over anything which an archer could climb past, and even higher if they use multiple bombs. Knights can be even more mobile than Archers by using the shield to glide, which can let them coast past structures and enemies that an archer would otherwise have to actively dodge.

    I'd also argue further that knights are so over-powered because the majority of the playerbase and developers of the game subjectively favor the knight class over the other two. This can be seen not only from the general opinions about gameplay discussion for knights, but also for the fact that the devs are in support of leaving an exploit in the game, which lets knights scale sheer vertical walls. The "well it's a game, not real" argument gets put into use to defend knights being able to use shields to glide, and swim in armor. Yet maintaining realism became an issue for structures extending too far out with players building sky-bridges, and they were forced to require proper support for the "weight" of the structure.

    This is, objectively, favoritism.
    Otherwise why not have archers be able to grapple on to their own arrows?
    Because it's not just that it's not real, frankly it is absurd.

    The first thing that really needs to change for knights is the favoritism among both players and devs.
    Second thing would be to require knights to rely on the other classes for other skills.
    Right now knights excel at doing too much of everything, and while team work can be utilized for success, at this point it is too much of an option when it needs to be more of a necessity. I notice from many years of playing though that knight players get impatient when they have to wait on anybody else, they only ever want to keep marching forward! Which is fair enough, as that's really what knights are made for doing, but it's getting to the point now where it is just a little absurd.

    So that's my main argument, and you can make of it what you will.

    Beyond that, here is my own two-cents on how I would go about balancing things:
    • Knights cannot swim, and will sink in water like a heavy boulder. This necessitates cooperating with builders for making boats, and makes warships more valuable rather than disposable as they are now.
    • Bombs should not do damage to stone blocks [dirt and wood still O.K.], as it gives knights too much independence for breaching well-fortified buildings. They should need to bring and protect a builder to the front-lines for such efforts, or move siege equipment up to the front.
    • Limit bomb-jumps to just a single boost, or make knights take damage in the process.
    • Knights should not be able to use their sword to get through dirt or wooden blocks [wood platforms and doors still O.K.], partially because a sword is not a shovel nor an axe, and mostly because they should need to rely on a friendly builder for such things.
    • Knights should not be able to use kegs [pickup yes, igniting no], and this as well should be deferred to the builder, who will need protection from his fellow knights.
    • Knights are capable of gliding for too long a duration, and their downward acceleration should be just slightly greater.
    • Remove the wall-scaling exploit. Wall scaling should only be possible only with a builder making ladders up the wall, or with archers and their grappling hooks. This is blatant favoritism.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2014
    PandemicCommander likes this.
  10. Sir_Walter

    Sir_Walter Haxor Staff Alumni Tester

    Messages:
    273
    1. Archers are much more agile than knight. If you learn how to use grapple horizontally to move quick across ground and put in a bit of practice in general, you can easily escape any knight provided you are not cornered and you don't mess up. Archers basically have free reign over the whole map, but they can't do much once in enemy territory unless they have a lot of coins and there is an exposed archer shop.

    2. Knights have a similar ability with bomb jumping, but they have to spend resources to move around. They cannot fluidly pop over to the other side, see what's going on, go back to the home shops and visit the center all in one life as archers can. They get over the wall once, and then they have to fend for themselves. Also if you cover your shops, rogue knights are destined to die eventually without doing much. In regards to the whole sky ridge nerf, I believe it was made to stop one builder going over the whole map and then the knights dominating their base, instead of making the game "more realistic."

    3. "Knights cannot swim, and will sink in water like a heavy boulder. This necessitates cooperating with builders for making boats, and makes warships more valuable rather than disposable as they are now."
    Yay, now games take 100x longer and 100x more stalematey and boring. Advance to the other team is nearly impossible if they have diligent builders. This also increases archer campiness, because it will be the only thing you can do.

    4. Breaking a stone building with bombs is very hard, unless the builder has never heard of backwall and the tower is one block thick.

    5. I already discussed why bomb jumping isn't bad.

    6. Woo hoo, even more stalemates. Buildings are made to be broken- if not games would last forever. Also you realize with this fix a builder could light the keg, drop it and give it to a knight, and then the knight could bring It to the front lines?

    7. As was discussed on your previous thread, this mechanic promotes skill (both in builders and knights) and is ridiculously easy to counter. It is not "blatant favoritism."
     
    Auburn and Apronymous like this.
  11. Auburn

    Auburn Prepare Yourself! Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    734
    [​IMG]
    You seem to be throwing around the word "favoritism" way too much. It isn't favoritism, it's the role of the classes.
    Knight=offense
    Archer=support
    Builder=defense

    Also, you seem to only know about TTH, have you even tried CTF? Guess what? there aren't infinite bombs in CTF, no infinite kegs either.

    AND if your changes were implemented, Knights would be at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to class balance. They'd only be useful against other players, and that's about it. Knights would be screwed as soon as they face any wall.
    If you really want these changes, why not give archer more power? Let archers have arrows that stun at any range and do a heart and a half of damage. Also, make it so builders can drop a single block on your head to kill you as soon as a knight reaches that wall. Add those changes to your proposed changes and what do you get? CLASSIC. Many of your proposed changes, like sinking in water, and nerfing gliding ability. It didn't work, that's why a lot of us don't play classic anymore.
    Why didn't you just come out and say "builder master race"? That's what these changes would cause.
     
  12. kodysch

    kodysch Bison Rider Staff Alumni
    1. Archers [Arch] (Recruiting)

    Messages:
    454
    Would it be possible to only make arrow slashing work only past the stun range of a full charged arrow?

    I used to be okay with arrow slashing as i saw it as a way for poor knights to have a chance of killing me, but the more i play the more frustrating it becomes. Especially at close range. At point blank range, my arrow is slashed out of the sky and the sword follows through to kill me, it's just unfair. even if i beat him with timing he still beats me because of easy luck. Not to mention they are favored by ping, countless times i have sink a full charge arrow into a knight, past his arrow slash into him, but then i'm killed by his slash all the same. He takes one heart of damage, but gets it right back because he just killed me. It's bullshit.
     
  13. Alpaca

    Alpaca Haxor

    Messages:
    462
    step 1: don't engage knights in close range combat

    step 1: Learn your role.
    step 2: Don't have any more problems.
     
  14. yeah most of this doesn't make any sense if you actually think about it

    the reason knight has to be so strong is because it's the only class that doesn't directly benefit from stalling the game. most of your "suggestions" used to be a thing and winning a game was hardly possible then since the defenders' advantage was ridiculous


    also if you say something is "objectively overpowered" it doesn't mean it is "objectively overpowered". it means you think it is.
    please don't toss this word around when all you have is how you feel
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2014
    BlueLuigi, Guitarman and Alpaca like this.
  15. kodysch

    kodysch Bison Rider Staff Alumni
    1. Archers [Arch] (Recruiting)

    Messages:
    454
    Learn your role? scoff. When you go to a tent in CTF you pick a class not a role, a knight can do almost anything that an archer can (albeit difficult) and a builder can kill. This idea that a class is supposed to do a certain thing is bogus, it is counter-creative and limits the fun, by saying you have to do things a certain way. I'd say more than most games, KAG is creative. not only because of the block placement but also the complexity of combat and the way teams can work together to achieve a goal. Saying that archers do this and knights do that is limiting.

    The change i proposed was a reaction to my frustration with close range arrow slashing, if a knight does a double slash and closes in on and kills me with the second slash, i'm not mad, he beat me, if i'm below a stomping knight and i hit him with an arrow, but he continues to slash and stomp me i'm okay with it. but if by random luck and timing he slashes an arrow that i fired first and kills me in the same stroke that's not fair.
     
  16. Alpaca

    Alpaca Haxor

    Messages:
    462
    I don't even feel inclined to read the rest of your post.
     
  17. kodysch

    kodysch Bison Rider Staff Alumni
    1. Archers [Arch] (Recruiting)

    Messages:
    454
    I feel bad for how narrow minded you are.
     
  18. Alpaca

    Alpaca Haxor

    Messages:
    462
    I'd say I feel bad for your inability to make an opening statement that isn't blatantly incorrect, but I don't think that it would be productive to the thread.

    Anyway, the point is, when you play a team game, everyone has a role. The classes are each designed to fulfill a number of class specific roles. There are many variations in how you can play each class, but when you get down to it, the basic role is usually still the same for each one.

    Knights throw themselves into your opponents at the front line, while archers shoot from the back. If you are extremely good at the game, and you are playing against players who are worse than you, then you can get away with throwing yourself at your opponents as an archer, or lobbing bombs from the back lines as a knight and still get kills.

    Everyone has their place, if you try doing something stupid when you can't outplay your opponent extremely well, then you won't beat them, and you won't enjoy the game. It isn't the game's fault that you don't understand class roles and/or how to work with a team, so don't complain about one mechanic being "OP".
     
  19. 101i

    101i Haxor Forum Moderator Tester

    Messages:
    445
    How about we give archers a sub-machine gun and builders a bobcat to even the playing field!
     
  20. Rayne

    Rayne ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator Tester

    Messages:
    1,916
    wall scaling does not promote skill within knights(it is ridiculously easy to wall climb), in classic only the most skilled knights could climb tall walls, and only when there was a way up. scaling a wall without a way up(notches, ladders, etc) is bad because it actually promotes bad buildings. to stop these wall climbing monsters builders often neglect the thickness and general design of a building in order to build a tall wall nobody can wall climb over, there is no skill to putting down a 1 block tower then backwalling it.

    in fact, i'd go as far as to say that wall climbing ruins the entire balance of the game, because buildings are trivial.

    while he did go a bit overboard on some of those suggestions, builders do need a fuckton of love to be fun for more than 5 minutes at a time.

    it's literally a class where you watch your creations get griefed as soon as they're put up, how fun is that?
     
    BlueLuigi, Guitarman and Apronymous like this.