Slopes at the base of the tower.

I think the idea is ok, it might look impractical, but that's just because we're used to vertical walls. Thing is, you have to guarantee a proper navigation for your team, and cut as many possibilities of climbing for the knights as possible. I did some tweaks on it:

Spoiler

Mainly: imagine that an enemy bombjumps the castle abd passes to the other side, the doorson the exterioor of the right side provide a path only for yourteam (blue arrows in the pic). You usually have to block the way back for the enemies in case they bypass your castle, otherwise they're free to go up and attack you from there.
Moreover, with doors in midair, orin the middle of a wall, sometimes you have it hard to enter, as you have to press Jump and Left/right, and release one of these while youjump in order to not to collide with the walls and enter the doors. The following gifs illsutrate it, and the soolution i had, where only holding JUMP and RIGHT worked for entering safely into the castle. This might look nonsense, but it's very important for builders to go safely back into cover. Those platforms also block possible arrow ladders.

large gifs linked

Spoiler

The better navigation imo is when pushing UP + RIGHT/LEFT works for getting out of or into your castles.

 

Seeing new, serious content in Building Critiques . . . it fills me with determination joy.

It is totally understandable that people have a negative reaction to that structure, based on first impressions. That's because, generally, you want to put the easy route (e.g. stairs) on your team's side and the hard route (walls) on your enemies' side. It feels wrong otherwise.

I find your reasoning interesting. I can see how it might inhibit enemy builders and kegs to some extent. But technically, there are more factors that threaten the tower, like bomb arrows and mines. (The stairs do nothing against bomb arrows, and make enemy mines more dangerous.)

The other, most significant factor is knights. People build high walls to avoid getting slashed in doorways. If even one archer dies in the door, it can open up a breach for countless enemies. When you make a stairway that leads up to the door, it negates this benefit of a high wall. In my opinion, this (along with the mines) makes me think that the cons outweigh the pros in this structure.

That said, I haven't seen such a structure in play before, so we can't know for sure, unless we try. Which I probably will, next time I play.

Also, the stuff that 8x said is very valid. Knight flow is very important, but it requires experience in both knight and builder to master. It also brings me to a point that's somewhat relevant to the OP.

People tend to shy away from stairs, regardless of direction. I always see rectangular buildings throughout the battlefield. But I believe that stairs, when faced properly, have a huge benefit for dealing with enemies inside your base. If a skilled knight gets in your base and destroys the ladders leading up the rectangle's wall, they can camp endlessly on the roof, killing any players who try to engage. A few blocks to approximate stairs, and the issue is solved.

I may have more to add later, but I g2g now

 

Honestly, you make a pretty good argument for those stairs! You've clearly thought this out and it's not griefing. A questionable building technique should not be "considered griefing" unless the builder intends to use it to harm their team. But generally if your team is getting pissed off at something you're building because they don't get it or think it's dumb, just back off, let them tear your carefully thought out shit down and explain to them why you think it's a good idea. It kind of sucks to have to deal with stubborn poops like that by letting them have their way, even temporarily, but it's better than getting into a silly build/destroy squabble where one person is building blocks while the other is destroying the blocks at the same time.

I like the reasoning, and I think it might work decently against those things. But like others have been saying, you have to take into account not only how durable a structure is, but how helpful it is for your team / how much of a hinderance it is for the other. The stair shape isn't a problem because it's "easier to climb" (I don't think it is really), but because it effectively makes the height an enemy has to climb to get over the tower shorter. I think usually this wouldn't actually be a problem at all, and as 8x pointed out there are ways to make it harder to climb as well, but if the stairs allow knights to climb over the tower with no bomb, or even to have slash access to the platform section, that's bad.

There may be other ways to accomplish that durability that don't dampen your tower's height advantage. Your "small roof" argument is pretty interesting and smart, actually, but I think bombs are usually effective enough at dealing with boxed in builders that you don't need to worry about that as much. Also if a builder has time to set up a lil roof on any tower, the extra second they would need to do it on stairs would be pretty inconsequential.

So, how about dealing with builders trying to burrow? My go-to is platform blocks. They're an absolute bitch to get through as builder, so put a layer of those in a section inside your wall or behind it, or even in front of it if you have a lot of wood and don't mind knights breaking them. Also, you can use them to defend doors, which are like the path of least resistance (and most free mats) for burrowing. Placing platforms like this lil diagram will force the builder to break the platforms before the doors, but the platform blocks don't impede anyone.





As for kegs, they're pretty much damn impossible to build against. Your stairs might actually be one of the better ways, but they can still just climb up the stairs, collapse your tower from there, and then climb over the rubble with those very stairs. The only real way to defend against kegs is with people.

Little microtechniques like this are really important to pay attention to! :D
Thank you for pointing that stuff out

 

Yeah, definitely, I use that door reinforcement a lot and that's how people counter it most of the time. It isn't too hard to just go over/through the tower and drill the blockage from the outside, as long as you pay attention and actually remember to do it! It's also more dangerous to fix it that way obviously, but I think it's worth it, especially if the enemy has a lot of builders who love breaking my doors.