[Builder Tweak] Repairing Blocks

Why can't builders repair blocks?

The mechanic seems so mindblowingly simple I'm surprised nobody else has suggested it (unless they named it something weird in the list).

How would it work?

Think of how the engineer works in TF2; He collects scrap to build sentries, and they get damaged over time. So, he repairs them. He collects more scrap, and simply hits them, using up his scrap and healing the sentry. Now, simply replace scrap with wood/stone, sentries with wood/stone blocks, and the engineer with a builder.

How would this fit into the game?

Builders already collect stone and wood, and when they left click, they swing a little hammer, so there wouldn't need to be any new materials or animations added. The repair speed would have to be slow, and only one builder could repair each block, to prevent resource wastage. Ideally, if a builder were mining a block, it would be marked as un-repairable, with the mark lasting one second after a builder stops minign the block. This way, repairing blocks couldn't be spammed to prevent access to fortifications, and would be mostly only viable during pauses in the fighting. It would fix the current (slightly painful) "destroy it all and replace it" strategy of dealing with damaged blocks.

Breakdown of the above:

-Only one builder repairing a block at any time. (Simplifies mechanic. Could have any additional builders get a red square as a notification around the block they're trying to repair)
-Repairing cannot be done on a block which is being mined.
-Repair speed is slower than break speed. (Prevents stalemates)
-A full repair (from nearly destroyed to unbroken) would use 10 stone/wood per block, and 30 wood/50 stone per door, and would take approximately 0.5 the amount of time it takes to break the block being repaired. (I.e, if it took 3 seconds for a stone block to be broken, it would take 1.5 seconds for a stone block to be repaired.) This way, repairing would be more efficient than replacing a block time-wise, but would be equal in efficiency materials wise.



Thanks to Jack Dalton for some balancing ideas and math help!

 

i totally love this idea!

 

i told you my opinion over steam so i guess i'll just post to give this thread more exposure.

 

This would indeed be amazing.

 

This feature was already a part of Classic KAG (well, it still is) but removed from the steam release. I'm not sure why it was removed but I imagine possibly because it did lead to annoying stalemates where 2 opposing builders would sit either side of a wall, one removing a block and the other repairing it.

However, these 2 ideas:
"-Repairing cannot be done on a block which is being mined.
-Repair speed is slower than break speed. (Prevents stalemates)"

Would solve that issue quite nicely if they could be properly implemented.

That might be an issue, however. For one thing, blocks don't have an ongoing status of being "mined" or "notmined" they rather have incremental health reductions caused by the builder's attack, so I don't know how you could really flag a block as "currently being mined" rather "touched once and left". Keeping track of the last time every block on the map was altered would also probably be overly costly in terms of memory.

The second idea is perhaps more plausible to implement, but not without problems. Classic repair wasn't gradual, it simply bumped a block back up to 100% health. However, if you had a gradual repair, one which was slower than breaking a block, why wouldn't you just break a damaged block entirely (and recoup some of the resources) and replace it with a new one? This would be quicker and cheaper.

So I guess while I would like to see block repair returned in some form, I think it would only be a good idea if it could avoid builder stalemates like in classic, and I think these features probably are probably going to demand too much screwing with the current engine for it to ever get done.

 

I really don't get why people hate stale mates, it's part of the progression of a match when builders recourses get low and bedrock is all that's left, so many people talk about how builders cause big stalemates but when in reality stale mates end stale mates, when a stale mate comes along by then most recourses are gone and buildings become shit, what dosent become scarce is coins, and kegs. Eventually the team with the better knights and archers and consequentially more coins therefore grieving them more kegs to over run the enemy and while doing do protecting what little base they do have,

 

Only problem with this is the selection of where you put your blocks is already a little wonky. It could become a problem where you repair a block that is almost full hp while the one you wanted is at close to broken. People would really get annoyed if that started happening.

 

Hence the slightly slower repair speed, or the inability to repair a block thats being broken.

 

or a certain time after its been mined