The diffrence

Praise:
Foremost I want to say that i think the game designers are geniuses! I really fell in love with the game play originality, granting it a distinct quality no other non-story MP-game has (Ironic, I found this game on valentines day <3). The SNES era sprites awake memories from my snes filled childhood, adding to the overall feeling of uniqueness. I'm guessing the game designers already know this, but the balance between unique characteristics and familiar game mechanics is in the moment perfect. My suggestion is to try to keep this balance while adding new stuff to the game.
I have read through some of the posts and have noticed a noticeable tendency to suggest old mechanics from other games be implemented. Though most any game copies mechanics from other games, what makes good games good is their originality, which is why I think it is a good idea, which the GD's are doing, in maintaining this ratio between old & new.

Problem: One of the elements that lets this game stand out is the sandbox-destructable-terrain mechanic, giving the player a sense of freedom and a high decision PS rate. What I have noticed while playing the game though, is that a round runs very linear. What I mean with linear is that the events in-game happen in an ordered sequence. There is an ideal tower structure that at any moment a player must build to win the game. After a while the sandbox-mechanic looses its effect due to this linear game-play.

Solution: Battling the linearity of game play is a common problem in most any game. I think the best go the game designers have is to implement mechanics which force the player to create a wider variety of buildings. Coming up with effective systems is not going to be easy, probably there are already ideas posted on this forum that promote new kinds of buildings/tunnel systems. Assessing how much variety they create compared to the amount of work is needed will be your main concern.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

//moved to general discussion as it's more of praise thread than anything else

 

Kay.

 

This will mostlikely be "solved" in future updates. :)

 

As the developers are adding more sieges and more types to counter buildings, adding wood blocks, variety in the battlefied will increase.

 

What's a diffrence?

 

I don't think it's linear. Every match is pretty varied.

 

I think every match is different except those generated flat maps, in which one team destroys. The games last at most 5 minutes and the other team gets decimated.

There are maps, that involve a lot of different paths and underground that make the game vary greatly in an infinite amount of ways since the playerbase can make maps themselves.

Plus....this game is in alpha It won't be finished for awhile (I hope it's never finished so I can keep on getting new stuff) So new mechanics will always be added to add new things to vary gameplay. Most likely starting with siege weps, and (hopefully) more game modes

 

Would you describe that? The builder thread is full of ideas about what makes a quality tower. I'm shocked that you think one particular design dominates the game.

 

There are not any towers that can dominate the game. Builders dominate the game. A single builder can take down any tower :p although if you have no decent builders...you're screwed xD

 

Just what I was thinking, some times the best thing is a 5 by 30 brick shit house tower with no doors, sometimes its a piddly wee thing with a couple of archers in it etc...

And no offense to OP I think it all depends where you are palying and who with because I would hardly call KAG games linear.
Different builders have different tactics, there are more aggressive type that will rush and build outreaches half way across the map some will maintain a uber fortress back at base yah know?

I think you need to find a good server. Maybe the tactics in the servers you play on are stagnating?

 

I do not mean there is a limit to how one can build a tower. Yes every tower is unique; different tower structures have their pros&cons and the player has to quickly asses on how thick the wall should be, its position etc. . (increasing decision-PS rate). In fact, there are so many factors that make up your tower you'll probably never encounter the same tower twice. What I intended this post to be on is the limited types/kinds of (game efficient) buildings one can build. Imagine Chess with only half the types of pieces. A small tactful modification of the game could create the necessity of a new building type, and thatd be cash money. This would boost DPS by a multifold- so if we have this in mind while playing, we can think about such a modification.

 

The problem, for starters, is that I don't think any of us really understand what you mean by Decision-PS or DPS. At least, I don't, and I'd love to be enlightened. I think once I fully understand your terminology I'd be able to offer commentary.

 

Lol'd

 

My vocabulary mainly comes from 21st century gamedesign, I cant remember the authors name but I bought it when it came out 5 years ago or so in english (Im german). I cant remember if 'DPS' is used in the book, tho it mentions that the rate at which the player is faced with problems/decisions the better. There are other variables that can make a high dps good or bad, but for simplicities sake lets assume that a high dps rate is good. Which leads to the conclusion that strategy/variability is good. This is totally off topic tho.

I'd like to get back at what Inexorable said about the game not being linear. I am not talking about the kind of linear game play youd expect from a single player where you run from one finish to end of a map. Linear gameplay is the wart on most any rts game. If we compare some old school RTS (real time strategy, the ones where you are some kind of kind and control/build an army) games what made War craft III(wc3), Civilization, Age of Empires(AoE) tend to be linear or not? All the RTS games had a set of strategies which the player can choose from, the player asses which to use, watches the enemy, applies a counter-strategy. Civilization had a ton of this, though it didn't get as much attention as other games due to the long duration of matches. I often find myself using the same strategies over and over again in the early games of Warcraft/AoE (--->linear game play). The Warcraft/AoE series increased its amount of applicable strategies throughout the series. In a serious WC3 match the player h
as to carefully asses what her opponent is doing, and what she should do next. It's not a *build soldiers, mine gold & attack* strategy. WC3 had moved away from the linear flow and combined with the marketing strategy blizzard possesses made it a damn popular game.

Im not saying KAG (King Arthurs Gold, for enlightenment) is compltely devoid of strategy. In contrary, I find the strategies offered by the game mechanics to be very fun; radically different to the classic RTS game. This game clearly lacks in strategy though, compared to other RTS's. Since the game's strength is this freestyle building I think that the game makers should kill two flies in one swat by creating the necessity to build more kinds of buildings, which then can be used strategically. New buildings---> DPS, variability, originality of the game.

EDIT:

Oh I forgot to mention, one way to boost DPS without too much work is to create two fronts by warping the world left and right (Im thinking portal style). Im not too skilled in programming, I wouldnt know how to code it, but I bet the programmers can figure it out. Probably has been though of bfore.​

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-When you forget to mention something use the edit button at the bottom of your post to amend new information. Please don't double post. I merged your posts together.​

Neat​

 

Uhm, forgive me sir, but isn't that what we do now? Build a solid defense in the beginning, meet the opposing team in some fashion, see what their strategy is and then counter that strategy? And so on and so forth? That's what I thought was happening... This game has a ton more strategy than any other RTS I've ever played (Dune, C&C, etc). It's not so much about the "sandbox-building" as it is using a team, allowing them freedom to confer and plan an attack, build defenses and go on the offensive if they wish.

That's just me though. This isn't Minecraft, no matter how much those kids digging giant holes in the ground might think it is.

 

I think the game has lots of strategy

 

No matter how many new block types/whatever the devs introduce, the players themselves have to want to work together. That isn't likely to happen on a public server, where builders construct buildings without co-ordinating them with the work of others, archers refuse to shelter behind a knight's shield, and it's rare to find someone who will go out of their way to help you from a sticky situation.

 

Yeah totally agree, I think alot of possible strategy is totally wasted by a lack of communication, so more complex and thus diverse solutions to problems are generally avoided, and you have to water down any tactical complexity to coordinating you and the 3 or 4 other guys on your team actually communicating together and the best way to utilise this organised core around the chaos of the rest of the team. This generally results in manic rushes, which generally come down to a matter of timing your rush when the most suddenly sprint past you, and making the same old sturdy but slightly boring and unspecialised towers regardless of terrain, available resources or pretty much anything.

More structural elements and gameplay feature will make the game more diverse, but anything new will fall into a happy little rut when it comes to how it's employed, as you generally have to get along with the generic expectations of most players. On an organised team however something like powder kegs been in game will, on it's own, make the game have a ton more diversity in tactics, on an average pub server it will probably be used in mass knight rushes and hastily thrown at towers, probably causing rather alot of team kills from falling debris.

 

The reason for this is the current support system, team bridges and the softcore fall damage.

The only viable defensive structure is a solid stone slab with an arbitrary length overhang.
Add in a bottomless moat and you're golden.

Doors are pathethic at keeping the enemy at bay;
people cannot, however, climb a vertical stone wall without a builder.

Team bridges enable vertical team-only travel which makes The Slab the ultimate defensive structure.
Only attrition, skybridges or extreme dementia on the defender's side defeat it.

It's dumb.