Class Bawww/Argument thread

This is nonsensical. Balance in video games strategies means that several strategies are valid paths to success. Imbalance is where one strategy is more powerful than another and dominates the game, ie. like we have now.

I've already explained to you how turtling via archers and workers in a tower beats everything.

You can't shieldbash an archer tucked away in a tower.

You can't glide down to a tower. You can bomb archers shooting at you from a tower.

This is false. The first charge shot will rip through the foremost knight's shield and the next two will kill that knight. So on and so forth until they reach the wall of the tower and what? Do half a tile's damage to the wall with their bombs and get smashed by a combo of charged shots and spam shots.

Any time that attackers can employ catapults defenders can employ them better, having the benefit of higher ground from, their tower. Workers won't be able to build close due to arrows, and even if they do manage it their building will be pelted by a catapult they can't return fire on. Even without considering defending catapults archers can shred those defending knights.

This is nonsensical. I could go into Game Maker right now and make a two teamed game where the first team wins instantly upon the game starting. This is obviously an extreme example but it's naive to think "that there's always a way".

I speak from experience playing clan matches, events like Guards vs The World, a tournament or two, and regularly playing with intelligent players. Having cooperative players at your side doesn't change the fact that archer spam dominates.

Builders get shot worse than knights.

I really hope you don't consider this a good argument. Knight teamwork is irrelevant because knights are irrelevant because they get shot before they can do anything useful (when fighting archer spam from a tower). Even besides that, knights teaming up to do synced slashes or whatever you're proposing would only help against other knights.

Bomb jumps only get you about like 20 tiles high, and to get that kind of higher you need get close to the tower and not get shot on the way there or on the actual jump. You can't even shield a shot as the stun will break your timing. Even if you actually complete the jump you now have half a dozen archers shooting at you. Bomb jumping is one of my favourite things and I do it all the time. From actual experience, rather than conjecture which you employ, I can tell you it doesn't work.

Any archery employed by the attackers will be disadvantaged against the defenders due to the defenders having higher ground and better fortifications in general. I'm not saying it's impossible to get kills on the defenders but they will be killing you faster so it's just another losing battle.

Again, I'm not talking about noobs. Archer spam is the biggest problem between experienced players.

 

Jesus Contrary how long did it take you to write that novel?

Here''s all I'm saying Knights have bombs ---> bombs kill anything they get close to ---> lead to no one wanting to be in the field (especially archer) -----> leads to camping in towers ----> leads to spamming of arrows from a safe post ----> more bombs being throw at said archer post

ze end.

 

So go knight and stop complaining?

 

Sure cause I love wasting my teams lives!

 

Wait, wait, wait...

How are they overpowered if they waste lives?

 

He just walked into that one. :D

 

Read my comment before that and then maybe you'd get it. Smh

 

Why? Umad? :D /troll
Back on topic all.

 

I'm not really sure what I just read.....

 

Never said you could, that was against other knights.

I've seen that happen, of course you do require a higher tower then your opposing team to be able to pull that off. It's still doable though under the right circumstances. Even more so if you manage to destroy half of it with a cata. And yes, it is difficult to build under cata fire but you have your own archers use them! Enemy archer won't be a problem if you manage to place a few blocks and stay behind them.

Ok, point taken. If the tower would have a cata it could bombard anything a builder would try to raise up. If everyone else would be passive... cata's are gold mines for archers. And it takes a while to take down a stone structure.

Well I could simply do the same couldn't I? Just have to see who's faster. Still a solution, no? That argument isn't exactly a valid one if you're trying to make my belief appear naive. Even you (or somebody else, can't recall) agreed that one way to counter those archer charged shot spams was through tunneling. I see a way there. Follow the light maybe? Heh. Sorry but I couldn't help it. Ahem... back on topic.

Actually... ever kept 4 knights sitting in the same spot and shielding? If one of the knight's shields are broken the incoming arrows are shielded by his mates if they are close enough (and if all shield in the same direction). I've seen 3-4 knights actually hold their position this way against 2-3 synergy shots. Harder to do while moving along with 3-4 people but if you manage to get some ground, long enough for a builder to place some stone blocks for cover or a temporary defense, should work. Might seem awfully slow but it can work. Also the bombs can be used to chew right through a tower's defenses if you can throw them correctly. Finally... why not simply make baby steps. Move a bit, let the builder maker some temp defenses and move from cover to cover. Plus any shots you manage to get on the tower with your own bombs are hard to repair because your team can just aswell shoot their builders or, why not, their own archers to give your own knights a breather.

Indeed they do... reason why they need to stay close to knights.

It was actually something I found amusing since it's basically the same thing, still efficient in combat but I never said it was against archers, and yes it was kinda painfully obvious that it was aimed at other knights. But you seem to have took a bash to it for some reason.

You really seem to recall some specific scenarios there. Also what would be the point of a bomb jump to get on or over the tower if you don't have extra ones to throw at the archers? Hells, depending on the tower and how it was constructed, you might actually end up where the archer may or may not be able to shoot you unless they move away, offering some vital time for the rest of your mates. Just because you've been through certain scenarios doesn't mean that all end the same, depending on the structures, players and even reaction times.

And the attackers are doing what? Tweedling their toes? Defenses can be built and even ~if~ the defenders bring a cata, a good archer can take it out, either destroying it completely if the defenders keep shooting, or making them retreat. Which still works in their advantage. I've seen dozen of times when a smart builder let his knights to charge ahead while he/she worked on making a small tower to gain a bit more ground and simply repeat the step.

Sorry but although you offer valid arguments you're playing this as if it's all set in stone based on your past events in specific scenarios. Synergy shots work if all archers aim for the same target which may not be the case UNLESS they know where the knights are going. Yes, defenders would have advantage over attackers due to higher ground but that doesn't make it impossible as you make it sound. All of the above suggestions I wrote down we're not written based solely on guess work, I've seen players use such tactics, when done right they actually worked. At a slow pace, true, but they worked.

Also... this isn't an archer vs knight thread anymore... it never was. Based on your arguments it's an "Archer's charged shots spamming is OP" thread, which I have to agree they are pretty powerful but I've seen people overcome it through different ways. All options resulting in pretty much not getting in front of them. It's like having a bomb throw at you... would you really wanna risk taking it to the face? This doesn't make the class OP but the tactic itself. My original comments we're regarding knights not how knights deal against this specific scenario/tactic, because knights still are OP... yes they die against such tactic but really... what do you expect? You're basically getting showered by arrows that stun you. Every other class dies just as fast if not faster due tot he lack of a shield.

Instead of actually saying that archers are OP and that knights are under powered because of this 'tactic' you should actually try and find a way to counter the tactic and leave the class alone. Because if archers are nerfed because of this tactic they will end up useless in general if say, their damage is lowered, except for when they use this tactic so you'll basically end up promoting it.

Your arguments that archer charged shot spamming are powerful? Yeah, I agree but I still think there are ways to deal with it if you didn't make things appear so set in stone, simply because of your past experiences. I'm actually curios if any of your team mates actually attempted any such ideas.

Sorry but... this escalated from a an argument that knights are OP to bashing people that archers are OP solely based on one tactic they use which if it ends up with the class nerfed it would make the tactic viable but can very much make the class weaker in general.

I still think knights are OP, I agree that archer synergy shots are very powerful but that's all that there is too it... nothing else.

Your scenario is very specific... ever tried RTDM? Archer's charged shots there, depending on the map can be either powerful or useless. Why? Because they aren't in a tower, because there might not be a straight line, because a bomb can easily kill them once a knight got close enough.

You need a specific counter for this ~very~ specific tactic, not a general nerf on the class.

I'm done here... there's no further point in discussing this. I agree that it's a powerful tactic in a specific scenario but that's all that there is too it. It doesn't make knights any less OP as they already are or that the true problem is the tactic and not the archer class itself.

 

Trying to be the big man and end it with your flawed logic? There are so many things wrong with your post, like:

I was simply refuting your idea that "if you try hard enough there's always a way to overcome". I proved this by showing that I could create a game where there is no opportunity for one team to win. You making a separate game doing the same thing doesn't refute my argument at all, in fact it supports it more by further refuting your original point.

I could do another big quote chain for your entire post but it seems like my efforts would be wasted on you.

I hate to play this card but honestly, get some actual experience before trying to make these claims with such authority. I have actually tried the things you are saying and more alongside and against the best players of this community and there is no getting around the fact that archers unbalance the game. They are overpowered in the absolute truest definition of the word. I have given you ample logic to demonstrate this and if you don't understand it then there's nothing I can do.

Whenever I do this kind of thing I have people message me and say "why do you even bother with these noobs Contrary" but it frustrates me because the devs listen and do not go through with changes they know are correct (like removing notch climbing) for fear of causing unrest in an ignorant community.

 

We'd just end up going back and fourth with this. One thing is sure even though the defenders have higher chances to win it isn't set in stone. I agreed that the tactic is powerful but as it stands that's the biggest OP thing about archers and that's actually the only thing you brought to the table, that tactic... that mass archer charged shot tactic in a tower. And because of that you want them nerfed... instead of finding ways/ideas on how to overcome that specific tactic. If the archer class gets a damage nerf, it will make them generally more weaker. In which case it will result in that tactic being used more frequently simply because it will not be OP but atleast decent compared to any other tactics that would become affected by the damage loss.

And I still hold on to it actually. There's no guarantee that there won't be ways in the future, or that someone might find a way to overcome that little example you offered. Maybe hacks or who knows? An extreme example.

Or maybe they know that the idea of nerfing the class will only please knights at the cost of archers suffering, and create even more unbalance. Maybe they're actually trying to come up with a solution that would please both groups and a way to prevent archers from using that tactic so often. But I guess most knight players wouldn't really care aslong as they don't get killed by archers anymore.

 

Note 1: First of all, this is a game where teamwork is important. This means that the game is meant to have several classes work together. You can see this by how the knight can shield the archer to defend the archer. Or how the archer can help a knight in his fight by shooting arrows to that enemy. Or how a builder helps both knights and archers by building structures / help infiltrate the enemy by making ladders and such. They still need to be protected though, as they cannot block arrows and they have a small chance against a knight.

Note 2: This is a game where teamwork is important. Do you understand what this word means? If not, then I don't think this is the game for you. Sure, Class A and defeat B more easily when using X. I'm not going to sum up which class is better in what and worse in what. Everyone has their own opinion about it and some things are facts. Think of them yourself.

Are Archer overpowered? Perhaps. Are knights overpowered? Perhaps. Are builders overpowered? Perhaps. Is there a way to test this the right way? No. Every game you look, you'll see that people whine about balance. Most of the times people just percieve it like that but it isn't like that. Sometimes people are right.



I'm both a builder, a knight and an archer. I think they all have something that makes them strong and I think all of them have a weakpoint. It's good that we discuss about a balancing issue but please keep it reasonable. I think what the developers should do is change variables slightly everytime to make classes play slightly differently. This will keep it fun to play, in my opinion.

I also think it's impossible to balance all the classes in a game where teamwork is more important. But that's just my opinion.

 

Regardless of all your banter, it's not to often if ever you see an archer walking/jumping While also being able to shoot 3 arrows a second(maybe more), honestly archers shouldnt be able to hop and fire at the same time, making them a defensive stalwart monster. If they couldnt hop while charging, the movement penalty for the charging arrow would actually do somthing, and perma kiting by archers would be impossible.
Rather than change somthing small to balance the game in SOME circumstances, why not just change the main realistic problem:
Archers ignore movement penalty by hopping while charging > Remove hopping while charging.
Problem solved, they are officially fixed, and made into the role they should be/may have meant to be put in.
Opinions?

 

Contrary, I said a *little* bit of unbalance, if everything was perfectly balanced then we would of come up with the best strategies already and keep on using those strategies because the other ones are useless or are not as effective. Just look at a perfectly balanced game and see that only a few certain strategies are used. Every build (don't say the server based ones :p) so far has changed the way we play depending on the amount balance it had.

The main problem I have when archers complain about bombs is that they can be avoided, there are only a few times when you can't dodge a bomb and when that happens it's your fault for positioning your self badly. If your going into the front lines a a archer expect to die more, because there is a horde of angry knights mad at you shooting them and the chances are they will only try to target you.

Archers are extremely balanced when it's a archer vs archer battle, knights vs knights is broken and random, but knights vs archer is very random, half the time archers just shoot arrows until the knights are pin cushions and this sometimes can stop a entire army from moving, and sometimes knights can destroy anything in their path with the amount of skills they have.

The main problems I have with the classes is that they both are horrible counters against each other without using team mates or knights using bombs. And that archers are just completely hard to kill in a vertical fight without a bomb.

If you have a archer vs knight battle on a flat map without trees,bombs or towers, they would just run around, the archer trying to get shoots in and the knight would try to get a jab in if he/she got close, that situation could last forever.

Both knights and archers are OP but the archer has the choice of confronting the knight because he is a ranged class while the knight class is a melee one so he has to get close to attack, knights only have the bomb for a ranged attack and it can be avoided or even used against the person using it, there are many counters to a bomb and not all of them are about camping or cowardly running away.

And fuck I started another archer vs knight discussion, what happens when your angry. But I can't take back what I said so I will continue to complain about this subject in this discussion with my opinion. doesn't mean I'm right in anyway, and if you could find a reason why I'm wrong that would be great.

Sorry for making another archer vs knight spam discussion contrary, I plainly did not know what I was thinking.


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Fuck all of you, making me take 10 minutes reading all that shit trying to get up too speed :p.

Anyway, a couple of things:

First: WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERYONE THINK THAT KNIGHTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE ABLE TO BOMB JUMP!? Does anyone see a problem that it's much easier to sit on your ass in a tower after massing 99 arrows and spamming them with 4 other archers at a couple of hapless knights then to take a bomb, jump in the air, and at the last second pull off a bomb jump? A lot of knights aren't willing to take that risk.

Second: Archers have the ability to do something no other class can do, which is put the brakes on an entire match. You can say and argue it's okay they can do this, but you cannot say that they DON'T do this, it happens all the time. I personally believe that this disrupts the flow of gameplay so easily that it is far to frequent, and brings matches to a slow, rage and death filled trudge, where archers rack up their precious kills as knights and builders try to overtake other knights and builders, while dodging arrow death rain.

Third: On topic, backpedalling would only really strongly effect a current imbalance in the game. Archers can run away from a slight distance and shoot, knights can't. I know, knights have bombs. But at the hundredth time I've been shot full of arrows from an archer, that I was able to sneak up on, running away, swinging from tree to tree, and the hundredth time I got away, as an archer, because I got the knight to back off by forcing him to keep his shield up while I spammed arrows everywhere. Is this really a good thing? That archers can run away much more easily? I can deal with an archer scaling a wall, because his team built it, and it was helping him, I can deal with two archers spamming arrows at me, a singular knight, because 2v1 should give them an advantage. But an archer can almost always get away if he is not in stabbing distances IMMEDIATELY when he starts to run? Really?

Fourth: Players shouldn't have to have the burden of overcoming cheap an extremely easy strategies like builders+tower+death rain=kill tickets=win, by finding an exact strategy to copy and paste each time. That's not good game design. I don't want every single match to end with the obviously BEST strategy (tower camping and spamming) with the obviously best counter to said strategy (to be discovered. Possibly ropes?).

Fifth: This is a teamwork based game, involving classes. This makes various encounters statistical in a certain way. There are counters. An knight, up close, should usually beat an archer, unless that knight is a dumbass and that archer is very good. It SHOULD NOT be the case that massing TWO classes (builder and archers) should not be able to overcome a balanced teams of a even mildly close skill.

Sixth: To this day, I cannot even fathom why some archers don't think it's okay that a knight that spend 20 gold, was able to throw a bomb at just the right angle, at an archer that doesn't fucking move from his entrenched position in his tower, to get the kill. WHAT!? You can spam a million arrows for much less cost a piece at a safe distance without any fear of ANYTHING except for bombs (and it's your own fucking fault you didn't move). Knights can't sit somewhere and just mash a single button and win.

SEVENTH!: Why do people bitch at people who want to help balance the game a little more and point out a couple of balance issues? I could never get that either. Sure, you can never completely balance KAG, nor any other team based game. But why can't we point out a few flaws we think can be fixed? Why is that bad? It will never be 100% perfect, but why can't we bump it up from 80% to 85%? Isn't that what pre-release testing is all about?

And last, but not least, my favorite single decimal number, EIGHT!: Classes should not be 100% counters. They should be play styles. An archer shouldn't always beat a knight, and a knight shouldn't always beat an archer. An archer should be able to win at far range, and should have a mild advantage at medium range. A knight should not be able to win at long range (unless extremely good with bombs and the archer is extremely slow and stupid), should only win at medium range if he is more skilled then the archer and has a bomb, and should have a huge advantage at short range. A knight should also be able to close the gap within time, or with greater skill, or else the archer will always win. If the knight is unable to close the gap, then the archer will always win, even if the two players are at the same skill level. This is the case with archers spamming wildly and bouncing away, forcing an archer to crawl with his shield, and is also the case with towers. This, is a problem. Because of this I think backpedalling would help ease this problem, and I still await with bated breath to see a way to crack those damn pointy stick spamming towers as easily as it is to maintain them, letting teams just as skilled or more skilled break them.

If you read all that, you are a stronger woman/man/both/neither then I.

 

Shouldn't we be more focused on how effed up knight vs knight combat is?Archers sit in towers, that's what they are made to do. If they are on the frontlines then it is a death sentence. I want to know why knights can bulldoze me across 30 blocks, just because they jumped with their shield out. Or why the devs have not fixed it yet

 

I play archer, Archers are OP.

Easy way to fix it - without touching either class.
Remove Team-only ladders.

Seriously. then knights will actually be able to MOVE FORWARD without a builder (who is super easy to pick off as an archer, lets not kid ourservs), and once they break open the door (That they can now reach without team ladders) they will be able to start hunting down archers inside a tower.

And I don't want to hear somebody complain that "knights shouldn't be able to move forward on there own, it needs teamwork", 10 knights working together IS teamwork, archers pick off builders first, so one getting through is more luck then anything. AND DO YOU KNOW WHY there are 10 Knights knocking at your front door? because you have no knights on your team to stop them since your ENTIRE TEAM IS ARCHERS AND YOU DESERVE TO LOSE.

 

Okay guys I won't pretend that I've read the entire thread, but there is something I would like to tell: An individual archer or even two aren't overpowered in a tower, nor in flat land. But when there's more than 10 archers spamming at you from where you can't kill them, it either becomes a stalemate or you keep on attacking and lose on lives. Don't talk about tunneling, don't talk about using catapults, don't talk about teamwork, because the first one is slow and boring, archers counter the second one, and third one gives you nothing in this scenario. The game STALLS when one team packs up to archers. A strategy is overpowered, dominant here.

There are a few ways to fix this:

Nerf buildings: This could be anything from removing notchclimbing to making knights able to break stone. Latter would make the cover that archers are redundant on more or less useless if it doesn't have ally knights covering it, but this would make knights overall overpowered, as suicide rushing knights powing through defenses would be a thing again. Nothin' but knights. I'd also like to keep notchclimbing in classic, but I'd certainly remove teambridge ladders.

More siege engines: Not gonna happen in classic, and classic is what we're talking about in here, right?

Nerf archers: Okay, here it comes. Nerf them. Yeah. But archers are boring to play as-is, why nerf them more? 3 seconds of charge time to release a shot? What would this fix? Maybe people wouldn't be so eager to play the archer, but the ones who still would, would camp in a tower and never come out because they'd be teared apart.

No, archer just needs changes. They need to be inefficient at long range. They need to be effective in mid range and short-ish range.
Archers need to be encouraged to go to the front. And super tall buildings should be discouraged.

Well I'm not too eager to write a novel, so I hope you now know how to fix archer mass spamming. Because it's a problem. Yes.

 

Hmm, I could say I'd have read most of this thread, but sticking to the OP seems fine enough. If I've missed any minor details, then apologies, but I've to comment on whether the KAG developers are following the realism that happened in the era that KAG is following, or gameplay balance.

(As this is a mechanics thread...)
PROPOSALS:

letting archers not shoot and jump at the same time, when moving backwards on the ground, (trees don't count :p ) they can only do one or the other or they won't be able to attack, and that any arrow that is in the process of being shot is instantly dropped.

Next, I've seen the knight-powerslash add an extra punch to the traction of it's wielder. But I'll leave the debate to the more experienced veterans. As it seems people complain more about archers.

Also, possibly to stop the amount of people complaining about knight shield > stun when two fully powered arrows hit right after each other. Perhaps giving a % chance per shield stun per arrow? 75%, at least?

While we're talking about that, nerf bombs. :p Somehow, as an archer-player, they seem to be fragmentation grenades instead, as every archer within a 5-man radius gets mortally wounded.

Spoiler: Historical...rant(?), perhaps

Now, let me start with the archer. The Longbowman. The English Longbowman, as the Arthurian Legend stems from Britannia.

Longbowmen performed exceptionally well in the wars and battles they were presented. It took years to hone a longbowman's prowess in their weaponry art, as the longbow took considerable strength to draw and even longer to fire and reload.

The benefits outweighed the cons, as in that time an arrow fired from a longbow could reach ranges that would stop a full cavalry charge - one that decimated infantry soldiers, especially heavy infantrymen.

In numbers, longbowmen were the staple force of the nobility in the feudal era, consisting of mostly more than half the size. The rest were men-at-arms, to engage in melee any enemy, if ever, that survived.

Peasant levies, or even commoners could easily afford being an archer as it was easy to acquire: you didn't need armor to be effective, and the only thing you needed to worry about was your wage and survival rate.

Now, the Knight.

Wearing platemail that weighed about more than twenty kilograms of weight, and having (well, in KAG), commonly made shields made out of sturdy oak wood, they made up the bulk of the fighting forces before technology of the longbow reached it's climax. The only problem knights faced were the damn high wages to acquire the armor, not to mention using swords (being a weapon only made for war), and the weather - movement was king, and a muddy terrain was a nightmare.

Usually, chainmail was the type of armor used, and perhaps the one generic knights use in game, due to the mail coif being the normal 'default' knight head. It is also good to know that knights were a hell lot more revered than their ranged brethren.



Because, well, facing the enemy in the melee with every move in sight is considered, generally, more honorable than getting hit by people you can't hit back.

The last paragraph also speaks to firearms. Then the field got even. X3

They didn't even have handheld explosives in abundance at the time, nor did they have spherical explosives that could light up like an easy fuse...Lugging around ~30 kg of armor was tough enough.

Knights benefited from their steeds, as cavalry always overpowered infantry. Mounted archers were very rare - shooting from a bow on a horse without any protection we see today is harder than it seems.

tl;dr (on both accounts) Gameplay balance seems greater than realism. :p Sure, there needs to be many minute tweaks to the style of the first two combat-aligned classes, but I'm seeing it as truly balanced if a team knows how to work together.

Also, looking forward to mounts. Because :)

Alsoalso, what an archer's general threat in KAG is Enemy: Archer > Builder > Knight, at range.