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10 years to destroy and a second to build

Discussion in 'Suggestions & Ideas' started by Rainbows, Oct 7, 2013.

Mods: Rainbows
  1. Rainbows

    Rainbows KAG Guard Forum Moderator Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    985
    [​IMG]
    This is the state of a match I was recently in. Whenever the reds took the hall the blues would just smash down any defences with a cata and retake it. Bad map design also meant that siege engines had to be deployed on a tiny plateau between a spike pit and a shallow cliff making catapults easy targets. After a bit of luck with two builders and the rest of the team acting as a meat shield the thing finally toppled and took the entire team with it due to an overhang.

    By the time the respawn counter started again it had been rebuilt and a cata was being deployed again.

    Basically buildings can be made too fast. Make a workshop that blocks have to be made in then carried towards construction sites. Make blocks have a cooldown timer or a timer before a placement becomes permanent. Just somehow make towers harder to spam.
     
    J-man2003, Bint and Contrary like this.
  2. Auburn

    Auburn Prepare Yourself! Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    734
    I honestly don't really see a problem with quickly building towers. I see a problem with the catapult on top of the tower. That is a weapon of mass destruction. Catapults do a ton of damage and stopped the red team from getting anywhere. Although, one good knight with good timing could have double bomb jumped and taken out the catapult, and then if the knight has extra bombs, take down the tower. THEN distract all the enemy knights, possibly killing them all because he has the high ground which would let the red team move forward. You just needed one ridiculously awesome knight to win.
     
  3. Contrary

    Contrary The Audacious Paramount of Explosive Flight Donator Tester

    Messages:
    2,196
    Yeah in all of the knight-archer balance crying it's always been the unassuming builder that has been the true powerhouse. Like I was just saying in another thread builder is so incredibly strong but its effects are so subtle that it escapes public eye- the reverse of how the archer's relatively weak triple shot ability elicits undeserved cries of "fucking op".

    In a big old thread named The Problem we talked a lot about this. I and others felt that it would lead to an overall more satisfying game for everyone if terrain manipulation (both construction and destruction) were slower. Under certain circumstances it's incredibly frustrating how easily your 20 minutes of hard work can be toppled. However you've also noted here this is often not an easy task and how powerful even a few minutes worth of building can be. Slower construction and destruction would mean that your hard work would have some lasting power and even though it would take longer to build, that in and of itself can make building a more meaningful experience. Compare for example actually mining and laying out a structure brick by brick rather than doodling it out into MSPaint then uploading the mapfile. The former is vastly more satisfying than the latter. Likewise actually destroying stuff would be much better as while it would be more difficult the struggle would make the accomplishment that much sweeter and you wouldn't have to dread your work being undone by the time you respawned.

    Unfortunately as demonstrated time and again players and developers tend to be strongly against this idea. Maybe people's minds have changed now?
     
    Ej and Fate like this.
  4. Yagger

    Yagger Kouji's bitch 5eva Staff Alumni Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    646
    Nahh, that sounds iffy at most.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2013
  5. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    Feel free to prototype this (make builder workshop have purchasable "block" items, and make those the requirement items in wherever in your gamemode or builder you set up builder blocks) and see how it plays.

    We're not going to be making any huge changes to the game balance as it stands, if anything we're going to improve the ergonomics of building - having to make blocks in a workshop before placing them is counterproductive in terms of ergonomics.

    The trick to having your castle destruction accomplishment guaranteed as worthwhile and not undone by the time your respawn is to make sure you don't die in the destruction. ;^)
     
    bru-jaz, FuzzyBlueBaron and Auburn like this.
  6. Bint

    Bint Haxor

    Messages:
    536
    I just want to see a chubby little builder plodding along with a block in his hands. Seriously though this does sound like an interesting way of building, it might force more players to help out as builders at the start of the match (or everyone will be too lazy and it will just become tdm).
     
    Guitarman likes this.
  7. Rainbows

    Rainbows KAG Guard Forum Moderator Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    985
    Is it definitely possible to mod in?
     
  8. actually, i strongly discourage anyone from reading this thread. bar posts of couple of people (probably only blueluigi and contrary) its full of shit, its literally shitty players playing one overpowered class making walls of text and shitty players playing other overpowered class making even bigger walls of text. honestly, its one of the worst threads in history of this forum
     
    amgtree likes this.
  9. UnnamedPlayer

    UnnamedPlayer Arsenist Administrator Global Moderator Tester
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]

    Messages:
    752
    I believe that you're looking at this on the wrong angle.
    I'm gonna quote myself here:
     
    bru-jaz likes this.
  10. Contrary

    Contrary The Audacious Paramount of Explosive Flight Donator Tester

    Messages:
    2,196
    Yeahhh this was the problem with the other thread as well, people dismissing other's ideas without any kind of supporting reason or evidence.
     
    sinnertie likes this.
  11. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    Yes. I literally gave an outline of what you would have to do to do it, as well :^)
     
    potatomcwhiskey likes this.
  12. potatomcwhiskey

    potatomcwhiskey Undercover Griefer Donator Tester

    Messages:
    385
    Builder has been disgustingly powerful for a long time.

    KAG is a game of attrition. Sure a knight bomb jumping into a tower is cool and stylish but the sheer power of a builder spending a few minutes making the route to the frontline as fast as possible can have a massivd impact.
    Reinforcement speed is an oft neglected, if your knight and archers take 10 seconds to reach the frontline and theirs take 15 then you're at a huge advantage in one aspect. This can easily snowball a game in one teams favour quite easily - ever felt you were outnumbered constantly no matter how many you killed? Theres a good chance is was your attrition was higher. This is even before you consider the effect of the actual defensive structures that are present on the front.

    We've had endless discussions on this subject. The solution is simple depending on who you ask, and for some there isnt a problem at all.

    Im more of a hand free kind of guy when it comes to thinking developer balance intervention. (Which is why I was very upset when bomb jumping - what I viewed as a perfect mechanic was removed aeons ago. I digress) The problem as Contrary put it this is probably one of those times the dev needs to intervene in some way. Most balance issues are brought and highlighted from metagame. If there exists no counter to that metagame then it is a solved game. And once a game state reaches that point it can become very stale.
     
  13. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    Wait what's the thing we need to do, mcwhiskey? I didn't see any concrete solution or action we could take (note: you've got like, hours and hours to respond, I'm going to bed now).

    I'm in agreement about the generally hands off approach, especially when something "feels good" - the current builder doesn't though, so i have no qualms fixing whatever's broke if I get given concrete things to do to it.

    Only planned change at the moment is making the raycast check in building a little more permissive than it is currently so that building around corners is a bit less of a nightmare.
     
  14. potatomcwhiskey

    potatomcwhiskey Undercover Griefer Donator Tester

    Messages:
    385
    Geti, I honestly have no idea. Game design is hard yo.

    Sometimes I wonder even if it is a bad thing, maybe we do want the game to snowball in one favour to faster pick out the victor - hell maybe we want the game to snowball even MORE? Creating fast paced mega games? Who knows, maybe if it snowballs more we'd get more action packed fast rounds instead of the slow grind into the enemy base?

    We really have to consider the myriad of options. If buildings being overpowered is a problem then I see some possibilities.

    - Better map design, from a community standpoint a lot of maps could be suffocating this and causing even more problems, with better designed maps this could be alleviated to where the "OPnees" of buildings is reduced and more easily gotten around.
    - Nerfing the builder/buildings somehow.
    -- Construction cool down of 0.5s or something between each placed block, ladders and wood unnaffected. Thus trade off is possibly made between speed and defense. Stone is slower to build, but wood can be spammed.
    -- Better offensive items, could be a problem as when you're behind it can be hard to get these, and the attackers probably have much more access.
    -- Building limits, can only stack so high before the blocks beneath start to crack. They take damage every x seconds for every block that is weighing on them, forcing more distribution and mainanence whilst forcing thinner towers. This one is tough not only to implement without increasing how much work a server has to do but also in communicating it to the player in some way so that hes not just like "Wtf my tower broke this game is gayer than richard simmons".
    - Different win conditions. For CTF - make it so the flag is always 10 is blocks from spawn towards the enemy, cannot be submerged in stone and will pop back to its pedastel in 10-20 seconds of not being picked up.
    - Grappling Hooks!? New class, has warhammer attack like knight but no shield, right click fires a projectile that pulls him up to the where he hooked, can jump at the end of the hook. Can carry 1 bomb. No charge slash, instead does an AOE damage to blocks in a 3x3 after 5 seconds of charging.
    - My suggestions are starting to get silly! :D

    Raycast change should be awesome, did I mention you've been doing a great job? :D
     
    FuzzyBlueBaron and Geti like this.
  15. Contrary

    Contrary The Audacious Paramount of Explosive Flight Donator Tester

    Messages:
    2,196
    My main problem with the state of building is that in many situations the easiest time to win a game is in the first few minutes. Games will generally move really quickly at the start but get more and more stalematey over time as builders have time to build up big defenses. This is really backwards IMO and it means that games rarely reach that sweet satisfying ~20 minute length but instead are usually either finished immediately or after 2 hours.

    Some way of slowing down the building process is definitely necessary, first and foremost. For reasons mentioned this is the first thing that needs to be done, and is not even necessary a change that will make things feel less fun.

    Beyond that more/better anti-building tech could definitely play a role, though I feel that sort of thing is best handled as diffused down a very long tech tree. At the start of the game buildings should definitely stand tall and be intimidating but they need to come down at some point. Maybe there could be a tech that takes at least 40 minutes from game start to research that allows knights to slash at stone? The tech tree has a lot of potential with stuff like enhancing the damage of various tools against building or siege machines or with new ways of passing buildings such as airships or digging machines.
     
  16. Auburn

    Auburn Prepare Yourself! Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    734
    Contrary, this is why I think tickets should be re-introduced into ctf and put into tth. It is the best way to stop stalemates, and then, when tickets start to run out, one team can hopefully get the advantage. Also, people will stop mindlessly rushing into battle.
     
    Guitarman likes this.
  17. 8x

    8x Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la Realité Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    1,325
    Some CTF rounds are bound to be endless. It's, as Contrary said 5-10 minutes or endless. The tickets thingy is something to reconsider, though it might have a lot of detractors...
    This needs something to incline the game towards one team, like a kind of 'suddend death' at the end. I like that idea of airships available after, let's say, 20 minutes.

    Imho, a few changes could -well, who am i to say this but...- improve the general advance/retreat, gain/lose territory, attacking/bypass buildings... I'm talking about a less drastic 'tennis' dynamic than the one we have at CTF.

    -stone doors easier to destroy.
    -faster place/quit ladders, delete them with 1 only hit.
    -drills resist more when destroying constructions.
    -builders and archers more resistent to explosives, but still easy to kill by knights
    -holding enemy corpses open their doors and does not activate hidden spikes. It slows you down
    -cannot place 2 colums of doors together
    -Building necessarily smaller (like not able to builde more than 10 tiles height due to support)

    It might happen that when having less resources to defend something, you use them more efficiently, and fast attacking-defensive buildings last a bit more and you can hold positions at the mid of the map, which with the current CTF happens rarely.

    I also like the idea of having the flag necessarily uncovered.
     
  18. amgtree

    amgtree Haxor

    Messages:
    482
    Lol are knights really compaling that they can't get over a tower and kill everyone. I'm not talking about rainbows situation; in that case I think it was because of bad map design. Halls should never be at the bottom of hills. Also I think ballisatas should be less damaging to terrain and better for taking out catas. So anit-siege, we really need a antisiege thingy!
     
  19. potatomcwhiskey

    potatomcwhiskey Undercover Griefer Donator Tester

    Messages:
    385
    This is your head -> ★

    This is the point of the thread -> ¤

    Watch carefully.

    ¤★

    ¤


    ★¤
     
  20. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    @8x: I'm not sure about those limitations on builder, I like the idea of ladders being more fragile but only if I go ahead with the planned team-specific ladder destruction (builders only for team ladders). The other stuff seems like a very hard limit on creativity.

    One thing I did pick out from there was the attractiveness of forward bases - I think some larger ctf maps would help make this viable, as well as people remembering that tunnels are a thing.

    @Contrary: I feel like there's a weird dichotomy in building at the moment - building some structures takes ages, but once you have a wood farm up you can spew acres of doors and temp walls with minimal effort and time. Unfortunately this doesn't translate to productive forward building due to the pretty intense erosion that happens to anything outside the main castles.

    Speaking only from a CTF perspective, as it's all I care about at the moment - fire arrows and kegs seem to deal with buildings quite well, but a team low on money and accurate archers (or facing a stone monolith) is in a bit of a pickle, there. I've seen Skinney fairly singlehandedly burn down very large flag vaults due to builders not fireproofing effectively - if they did, you'd need explosives for it to be effective.
    The drill could likely use an offensive buff to give another anti-building option that doesn't require loading like a cata.

    What would you suggest for slowing the building process? Making building literally slower per tile will just mean there are smaller castles at the end of build time, and more people mad at the fact that building is slower :^)
     
    Magmus likes this.
Mods: Rainbows