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Balancing the beta

Discussion in 'Suggestions & Ideas' started by Ne3zy, Jul 29, 2013.

Mods: Rainbows
  1. Ne3zy

    Ne3zy Haxor

    Messages:
    308
    Hi, so I played the beta for quite a while now and it really needs some important balances. I'll suggest you below some changes which will in my opinion balance the game and therefore allow competitive.


    -> The technology tree ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    The tech-tree is a really interesting feature, it allows a lot of strategies depending on what you research. But the actual one don't work as it should, its main problems are :

    - Its adaptability, for example if you want a catapult you are forced to research a warboat even if there is no water on the map.

    - Its complexity, there are a lot of research branches, it's pretty hard to understand what you need and how it works.

    - Its coherence, for example the fact pyrotechnics is a late-game technology (you have to research 3 other techs before you can have it), when you finally unlock it everything is stone made.

    - The trader, it gives gold a real purpose but it shouldn't allow you to immediately unlock a tech you're not even researching (futhermore it's not balanced since there is not the same amounts of gold in every map).

    Because of all these problems I made a new tech-tree pretty balanced in my opinion, it fixes all the problems hereabove :

    [​IMG]

    First of all :

    - I grouped the tech-branches by purpose (for example the first one is "supplies", the second one is "siege" and the last one is "naval").

    - You can only research the next technology if you have the previous one (for example if you have drill and already unlocked the mounted bow tech you can still change what you're researching to demolition tech)

    - The research time increases exponentially (first techs research faster than last ones).

    - Longer arrows take longer to research (for example bomb ammo take longer to research than water ammo even if both are tech 4).

    - You're not forced to research every branch at the same time, if you choose to only search two out of three you will research both faster (this way you can rush techs, for example you can choose to only research a single tech branch by voting only into that one).

    - Colors on the picture (lighter and darker items) mean nothing.


    From there I made a lot of changes which I'm going to explain below :

    About the "supplies" tech-branch :
    This branch is quite similar to the previous tech-tree at the beginning but its main changes are about pyrotechnics and water/bomb ammo.
    Pyrotechnics is now a tech you have earlier in the game since at this stage of the game it's almost a must have you are forced to research it.
    Next you can choose between water and bomb ammo, however bomb ammo is a bit longer to research, simply because with the ballista from the "siege" branch it's really powerful. Research water ammo if you want to have more fight power or bomb ammo if you want more siege power.

    About the "siege" tech-branch :
    Trampoline is now a early tech because it's a really strong item to have, its purpose is also to make the drill a tech two.
    Once you unlocked the drill you have to choose between two type of "siege" paths the ballista one which will allow you to respawn in middle of the battle (you can also upgrade it with the bomb ammo from the "supplies" tech-branch), and the catapult which is a massive destruction path, however it's longer to research than the ballista.

    About the "naval" tech-branch :
    I removed the saw because it doesn't worth a tech slot and it's better to have it unlocked since beginning so you can gather wood at the earliest stage of the game.
    I grouped all the boats together so you don't have to research boats if there is no water on the map, the warboat takes longer to research so you don't have super early outposts.


    -> The trader ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said before the trader is good because it gives gold a real purpose, but it's also very unbalanced since there is not the same amount of gold in every map. Futhermore you should'nt be able to unlock a late-game technology like the catapult from the beginning.

    This feature is almost imposible to balance if you want to keep the gold trading aspect but one way to do it would be to reduce the ingame impact the trader have, and to balance it in relation with the time it takes to mine.
    Here are some values regarding the gold you can have in seconds imagining it's a full gold map :
    - 0,09 seconds -> 1 gold (0,06 blocks)
    - 1,5 seconds -> 16 gold (1 block)
    - 7,5 seconds -> 80 gold (5 blocks)
    - 15 seconds -> 160 gold (10 blocks)
    - 1 minute -> 640 gold (40 blocks)
    As you can see, if there is a lot of gold you can gather it pretty fast even if in most of the map you won't find all the gold in the same spot.

    Instead of instantly unlocking technologies the trader should make them research faster, for example he could sell different research scrolls which give a research boost.
    I suggest something like this (you can tweak the numbers if you don't like it) :

    - Small knowledge scroll : gives a 10% research boost for 7 minutes and costs 320 gold (which is 30 sec/20 blocks)

    - Medium knowledge scroll : gives a 20% research boost for 5 minutes and costs 640 gold (which is 1 min/40 blocks)

    - Big knowledge scroll : gives a 30% research boost for 3 minutes and costs 960 gold (which is 1 min 30 sec/60 blocks)

    Of course you can only have one scroll at the same time !
    That way the amount of gold on the map will only determine the rate your technologies unlock theirselves without creating an unfair advantage or going too fast.

    Same goes for the trading section (materials for gold or the opposite), rather than making you able to directly buy materials or gold why don't you make it be like the knowledge scrolls but instead of having a research boost you have a supplies boost (the material crates).


    -> Capturing an hall ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    Actually halls take too much time to capture even if you are a lot capturing it, this is a problem because when you do, you are limited to the capturing area which makes you vulnerable to everything.
    That promotes super long matches giving the opportunity to take the hall back when you lasted 30 minutes to break in even if there are ten guys capturing and defending it (a single keg will do the work).

    The capture rate should take in account two factors, first one is how much players are capturing it and second one is how far from the main hall is the hall you are capturing.
    The main hall would take longer to capture while the other ones would capture faster.


    I might make the wall of text bigger soon, if I do I'll post next to this so don't worry.
    Please tell me what do you think about the changes I suggest ^^ !
     
    kaizokuroof, MrError, JoshTG and 5 others like this.
  2. Galen

    Galen Haxor Staff Alumni Donator

    Messages:
    1,262
    Moved to appropriate section.
     
  3. Ne3zy

    Ne3zy Haxor

    Messages:
    308
    Added balances for the trader :D !
     
  4. Monsteri

    Monsteri Slower Than Light Tester

    Messages:
    1,916
    I like this, properly branching the tech tree would indeed make researching way more straightforward and understandable.
    I'd still personally like to have the freedom of researching what you want, even though it would require more effort from the players (as so: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/tech-tier-tech-tree.14525/ ).

    I really like the idea on those trader scrolls. It sounds great especially for competitive game, as you can sacrifice one player from your team for a period of time to in turn gain a tech advantage over the enemy team.

    The material buying should be left untouched though, perhaps the prices lowered a little. No one wants to buy 500 stone with 250 gold when you need only a little more to get scroll of carnage, and the stone is quick to gather.
     
  5. ColbyCheez

    ColbyCheez Horde Gibber

    Messages:
    20
    The tech tree is a good concept, but what would make it even better is having SCIENTISTS. You could pay your workers to be a scientist, and it would speed up the process of research. Also, to start researching the dinghy for example, you would need to pay the scientists with wood, stone, or gold. Gold is more valuable so it would cost less gold than wood and stone. once the research is complete, if some ressources are left, they just continue researching the next tech and so on...
    This concept would make research a challenge, and it would make the game a bit harder to win. The more a team pays ressources and gets scientists, the faster they will win.
     
  6. Ne3zy

    Ne3zy Haxor

    Messages:
    308
    Added balances about halls :) !

    @Monsteri
    The problem with buying directly materials from the traders is it's very abusable (depending on the map of course), giving a bonus over the time will have less impact but still be useful. In fact doing this is like capping the max gold you can use on the bonus, this way you balance the gold on every map.
    We could also make supplies bring the bombs, etc... To make the upgrade even more interesting and make people think before wasting catapults and ballistas.

    @ColbyCheez
    I don't think focusing the game on this is a good idea, and as I said before if you pay an amount of gold which is always the same on every map the gamemode will never be balanced.

    Instead what we could do if we want to keep trading (like it's now) is basing the prices on the gold available on the map instead of having a fix amount.
     
  7. NinjaCell

    NinjaCell Haxor

    Messages:
    358
    I'm not actually sure KAG Beta was ever balanced. The closest we ever came was in the days of OP backstabs when the knights were buffed. The devs however predicting continued rage about archers proceeded to nerf the knife into nothingness. As soon as I saw the grapple I was overjoyed. Finally, I thought, the movement boost archers have needed for ever! A sweet new Legolas shot! Yes! Of course this turned out to not be the case. Instead of the extra ultra-shot that would be added into the archers repertoire it became their main attack backed up by a pathetic short range shot. They became squishy with 2 hearts of health rendering their movement boosts pointless.

    Knights have always been the most mobile class but combining that with a non-stunable shield and then later spammy jabs and a ridiculous slash reach is just come down to trolling. Trolling every archer.
    With each buff or new item comes a new buff for knights to 'even' it. Then you're like okay, okay, but at least I have this shiny new toy. For a split second a good archer can beat a decent knight. Then they nerf the boost. And the knight still complain, they always do. But this build, build 866, it went too far. The buff was just a nerf with a shiny new grapple to distract us. To be fair, it seems likely this will be fixed. It just seems that the trend may continue and they will proceed to give knights something else.

    Archers also have no clear role in TTH, even if their damage and health were buffed, they would still only hold off the opposition. A mounted bow would do half their work. Builders and knights are much more versitile. 1-2 archers per team is generally enough. Co-ordinated knights and an offensive builder will win you the match easily. Archers need a role. In CTF they may become semi-viable, used to whittle down the opponents numbers, but in order to reach their classic role they need one thing...

    Stun. This alone would save the class. Being able to once again knock knights scaling your tower to their demise, to be able to smash a slashing knight back, to give you a few precious seconds to charge your bow, to stomp a knight as you "fall with style" whilst unleashing a deadly arrow shot to their oesophagus and finally to knock a shield gliding knight RIGHT BACK ON THIS FAT THOIN.

    Would be kinda cool.
     
    Sturm and Raelian like this.
  8. Galen

    Galen Haxor Staff Alumni Donator

    Messages:
    1,262
    Merged from there. Please make sure to use the search engine next time before posting something that might've been posted already. Thanks.
     
Mods: Rainbows