General Knight Changes

Bobotype. You got...

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And take this advice from another Rick...

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@bobotype If you think knights should remain the pushing force, you should leave balance as it is.
"Archers' role currently seems to be attack and help put enemy Knights out of commission so yours can advance. This will not change if Archers get Shield penetration power, it will just make them more efficient at it, and your Knights will remain the pushing force anyway. If the enemy base has an Archer stopping your Knights from proceeding? Then you're going to need an Archer"

Yes, it will make them too efficient and will cause stalemates. By the time you get to their base you will be out of arrows. Arrow limits will hurt offense much more than it will hurt defense. How will your archer kill another that is behind a platform? Obviously with spec arrows, but what if they hide until a builder repairs it?

Archer's are a bloat class, eh? No one wants to play them? Loads of people play archer and see no problem with it. Using TF2 a 3D FPS as a comparison is ridiculous. It is much harder to aim accurately in TF2 than just to spam arrows in KAG. As I have already said classes in KAG are nothing like classes in most other games.

Spoiler: Spoiler Hint

The whole team is benefited from a few archers, as they are actually useful. Knights are on average better in combat, but having a few archer is always a good idea. Knights and archers are both equally useful but only in certain amounts. As you have kindly admitted, knights are the main pushing force and archers support them. Therefore you will have more players in the main pushing class. "Balancing" the classes encourages a excess of archers and therefore causes stalemates. It doesn't matter how much you change them, archer suck at pushing without knights.

You seem to be agreeing with us now. You don't need archers. You seem to think giving archers the ability to stop knights completely while still inside a tower will improve gameplay. This will cause stalemates. Nope, having more powerful offensive archers will not help. Arrow limits will slow down the defense, yes. They will slow down the offense even more. Don't give me that "picking fired arrows off the ground rubbish". You hardly get any arrows for that.

Archers are weaker in combat in the sense that a group of them cannot push forwards like knights can. It doesn't actually matter if one class is "better" than the other. Archers are still a necessary part of the game. The whole team is never punished for having some archers on their side. What the team is punished by is people using archers thinking that they are the ranged equivalent of knights. They don't need to be equal. They have extremely different roles. And no, roles are not as simple as ranged/melee. That was duplolas's point. There's no point comparing a knight and a builder because they do different things and you need different numbers of them at different points during the game.

When auburn started this thread it was because he thought that knights were unbalanced in the sense that the changed the game too much and made other aspects defunct. You have never looked at it like that. It is archer vs knight in the sense that he thought knights made archers (among other things) less useful than they can be. Not in the sense that "archers must be able to do the same things as knights".

More archers will always cause stalemates. It's just the way they are. Don't claim you can solve something like that with an idea as simple as "less ammo". Do you think the devs haven't tried that? Do you think no one else knows what will happen? It's not some complex idea that we can't grasp, you know. We know what you are saying and we know it doesn't work.

TL;DR: Classes in KAG aren't like classes in other games. You can't measure them the way you do and it doesn't matter if one is used more than the other. All classes are necessary for gameplay and everything you have suggested ignores the basic class functions and unbalances the game.

--- Double Post Merged, May 15, 2014, Original Post Date: May 15, 2014 ---

I meant that it is impossible in this moment, for you to be as good as everyone else here. Why? Because you do not have that practice or experience. Why would I bother insulting you on something (your potential skill level) that isn't even relevant? If you actually read my other comment you will notice that I pointed out that through practice and skill you can become that good.

Seriously, stop making up insults to discredit people. I don't need to discredit someone who won't listen to literally anyone else's main points. You say you are looking at the big parts. Yes, the parts that are big in your argument, not theirs. You say we ignore your point about ammo, but one of the developers of the game discredited it. It is now redundant. You keep ignoring the fact that:

DPS doesn't matter.
Classes are not the same and cannot be measured by statistics.
You claim a team cannot go without knights, yet you insist they remain the main driving force.
You say archers are not a support class then say that they should just become more efficient at supporting.
You admit no one agrees with you and still think you have grasped some massive flaw in the game.

 

@NinjaCell

My goodness you're being thick. It won't cause stalemates, if there are two Knight/Archer forces, and one eliminates the other, then when you reach the enemy base your Archers snipe out any residual Archers defending for you.
If you get to their base and have exhausted your Arrows: You're able to pick them up from dead enemy Archers, you're able to pick up your Arrows that missed and you're able to pick up any missed Arrows shot at you if an Archer is on defense.
As for the camping behind platform, WOW, maybe this isn't the first time I've said this; but

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YOU'RE CRITICISING SOMETHING WHICH I ALREADY MADE A SUGGESTION TO FIX. I SUGGESTED THAT ARROWS DAMAGE ONE WAY PLATFORMS ABOUT 2 PAGES AGO, AND YOU WERE THERE TO SEE IT. Clearly, you decided not to see it before jumping in with your clever point I hadn't thought of, right?

And anyway "what if they hide until a builder repairs it" means they're effectively dead anyway until the Builder does something, because they won't attack, so that point is null.

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Learn to freaking analogy. It wasn't a direct comparison, it was an analogy. What was being discussed was uselessness in terms of attack range, not difficulty of aim [A Separate Issue, moron] which is a constant whether you're playing a 2D or 3D game, which I overestimated your ability to understand. At any rate, the other main thing was being discussed was that being able to class change doesn't make your class any less shit, and that flew right over your head too.

You've said in your post both this and "you don't NEED Archers". Pick one. If you don't NEED Archers, and you NEED Knights, then Knights are indispensable compared to Archers and so more useful. AND THAT shows a gameplay imbalance.
I've said my changes will leave Knights the main pushing force, but it will also make Archers more powerful to do what Knights can currently do in the hands of skilled players.

Seriously, you can't have both the points of view that, as directly quoted by you, Archers aren't useful and Archers aren't a bloat class. You can only pick one. Are Archers useful, or are they useless [which means they are a useless gameplay feature and thus a bloat class]? Besides, I've been saying most of this thread that you don't NEED Archers.

Well seeing as you tell me I disregard the devs, Geti does in fact list Arrows off the ground and corpses as a viable source of ammunition. You're bound to get some from killed Archers, and you get three from every missed Legolas Shot an enemy puts out, and you can also pick up any you've missed after a fight too. Anyway, I'll concede a little that it will be easier to run out of Arrows frontline, but the changes will also lead to more people being able to afford Bomb Arrows after the initial skirmishes like Knights afford Bombs after initial skirmishes, which leads to more destruction of the castles and better offensive push. So it evens out.

That's the most reasonable thing I've ever heard: The team isn't punished by having Archers on it weaker than Knights, the team is punished by having a player as strong as Knights. You really didn't need to try and argue this point.

And this is what I can't get into your thick, thick skull. The point is that they need to be able to accomplish the same things, but differently. And that is entirely possible, your narrowminded aggravating attitude notwithstanding. Archers fulfil a different role to the Knight, but are worse at their role than the Knight is at theirs. All we have to do is make Archers better at their role, which is attacking at range. We don't have to make them "attack at melee to make them equal" as you ridiculously stated.

Then, uh, why did you bring it up, mate? Oh yeah, to try and discredit me with "class is fine, you're just bad, maybe 1 day u can be MLG". On Page 23.

You keep literally ignoring the facts that:
Dps DOES matter
I'm not saying classes are the same, statistics measure how well they fulfil their different roles
You say Archers aren't useless, yet you also agree you don't NEED Archers while you need Knights and Builders
I use "support" very loosely because it's all they can do when they're designed as a long range damage class but can't without help
You are literally trying to tell me some things I've been trying to argue half of this thread, while saying I'm disagreeing with you on them

 

Useless does not equal essential.

You could win without catas, kegs, bombs, tunnels, balistas or spec arrows but that doesn't make them useless.

If you're going to insult people, don't make such a big deal out of it if they do it to you.

 

Wow, I didn't know bad=/=must have. Thanks for that nugget of wisdom, got any more?
If you need the Knight and Builder, but don't need the Archer, then you might as well have another Knight or Builder that you need, which means having Archers is useless compared to having more of those essential classes.

They're simply added strengths of the class though, you don't have to pick them over something else except if you've a full Inventory. If you don't NEED Archers it means you're picking them over another essential class, which makes Archers useless.

I didn't start it, and have been putting up with it for a few days now, and with little visible moderator intervention feel doing the same is only fair. Thank you for not lying, at any rate.

 

You need a certain number of knights and builders. If the enemy decides to use archers, which they probably will, its in your teams best interest to have some. 4 knights vs 3 knights + 1 archer, the side with the archers going to win.
You don't need archers, but if you already have plenty of knights then playing an archer will help your team more than something else.

That's why its a support class. They are not essential but they are an advantage. Again, you are only looking your own class not everyone else's. If your team had all knights no builders, even though knights and builders are both objectively equally necessary, picking the builder would help your team more than the picking the knight.

 

I agree with you on requiring a certain number of builders and Knights, but I would also say that from there having another Knight is at least equally good as having an Archer, maybe not a Builder because you can only have so many constructions going on, etc., but another Knight never hurts as added cannon fodder.
Really bashing my head on a brick wall with the ingrained attitude that Archer's "Support". Just because it isn't essential doesn't mean it's a "support". It just means it's a weaker class which relies on the essential classes more in many situations.
I agree with the builders/knights thing, although it does come down to some other factors like if you're out of building mats or something too. Knights are always useful to have around flat out, even without Bombs. They just control the midmap so well.

//Edited to remove accidental (?) double post ~PL

 

@Blue_Tiger do you even play archer? Well?

 

Hi,

I didn't read all 25 pages of this thread, so apologies if my point/query has already been brought up.

I bought the game on Steam in the sale a few days ago. In the trailers it looked really fun - being able to build cool castles, pilot catapults and ballistae, destroy enemy castles etc.
Unless you're perched on a battlements or you're being protected by other knights, the Archer class doesn't seem nearly as effective - although perhaps I've just not seen it used well. And the builder can make spike traps, but it's fairly easy to avoid the traps, so the best defense against knights for him seems to be putting stone doors/walls in front of their progress...

Also, if there's a really good knight player on one team but not the other, then it seems like they can pretty much singlehandedly win the game. I hoped the game would be about teamwork - I'm a big fan of TF2, and in that game most of the time an effective team of average players is far more valuable than a single great player in a team with no coordination. Again, maybe I haven't seen a good example of teamwork, but in some rounds of KAG I've seen a knight on the other team who is just a lot better at landing blows and killing other knights, and since the other classes feel so underpowered against him, the only team strategy you can really use is just to rush him with all your players at once... there doesn't feel like an alternative way to effectively kill a knight apart from being a knight yourself, basically.

I've never seen players use ballistae or catapults effectively, either. I realize that this is a subjective opinion, but I really want the game to be more focused around building, using workshops to kit out your own armies, and using a variety of tactics to take out the enemy... whereas at the moment it feels like a simple 2D brawler, with a slight background element of building...

 

The reason for this is more because of the way most people tend to either choose archer or knight for the most part, so builders get left behind; once you get a game with a few builders, and a bunch of combat classes, things get good! You get to see multi-platform levels of battle, tonnes of traps and tactics and shit-tonnes of OP knights owning us archers and me swinging around owning the OP knights myself.

 

I dunno - even when there are builders, the only difference it seems to make is we get a slightly bigger castle, and a ballista (that people hardly use anyway...). And then it's almost the same stuff of lots of kinghts all fighting in a pit...

Also, I dunno if I like how much the game relies on individual player skill so much - sure, there should be a bonus for being more skilful, but IMO the biggest 'skill' you should have is awareness of where to be in a battle - i.e. if you're on your own, you shouldn't go charging into a group of enemies alone. But as it is at the moment, if one player is substantially better skilled than other players in the game, then they can just dive in to a group of enemies and kill every single one of them (the fact that hearts drop on kill makes this worse - even if one person does get a hit on an enemy knight, the knight's health will replenish as soon as he's killed another enemy.

Like, I wouldn't mind if I got owned by a knight who was spearheading a coordinated assault, because he'd have backup. And I wouldn't mind if players could repeatedly win 1 v 1 duels with other knights... but I've sometimes seen knights that can just camp outside their enemy's castle, and even if 4-5 knights and archers all try and swarm him, he still manages to win against them... So, unless every player on the server is of roughly the same level of skill, the game becomes a lot less tactical (which I thought was meant to be the focus of KAG)...

But yeah, maybe if I play more of it, I might get to see some cooler castles, and see archers being able to take down knights... but I guess it was just a little offputting to have gotten all excited after seeing the trailer and then my first few games are these boring knight stalemates or a single player on one team deciding the entire game...

 

If u need Tactics in KAG, u need friends or clan to do that. Tactics not work Without communication (Like Skype or Teamspeak) and good skills of players.
Archers can take out knights but its very hard to do, so they need support like knights in 1 vs 1 duels. knights like the indirect-combat units : they bomb, slash and stab but without support direct-units they are defensless. Maybe archer is not effective againist knights, but archers have direct attack with Legolas shot and hooks.
And i see on most servers, archers are becoming knights first target. it can be useful to lure knight and kill them without losing life.

 

So this thread is pretty much a cluster-cuss, but I feel i'd get yelled at for starting a new one.

What do you guys think about knights only having 3 hearts?

doesn't make them any less knight, just more skill to survive.

comments, concerns?

 

I think no.
Because Knight is a tanker and indirect-combat unit and make him 3 hearts instead of 4 its unbalance.
if make him 3 he can die with one bomb and archers can use Legolas shot (Triple) to insta-kill with 3 arrows.

 

i agree with dub, making knights only 3 hearts would make them underpowered and the class overall would be not as fun to play.

 

I agree the knight shouldn't be only 3 hearts, it removes the whole idea of being a knight - being OP. They are an offensive unit, and this would make archers be able to one shot them if timed correctly which would then make the archer OP.

Personally, to increase balance in this game, I would increase archer health or decrease bomb damage - either one would really help with the knights being able to one-hit archers at any range.

 

One slash to the face will get you stunned, followed up by a jab.

GG.

 

I agree with @Blue_Tiger, increase health archer or decrease bomb damage.

Or Remove Archer and Builder class!
*Joke*