[Rant] Game Balance And The Community

you can view his posts in the what are you working on thread in modding section. no need to repost here.

 

I'd almost agree if forward spawning wasn't just generally cancerous. I'd prefer the people spamming them be spending their time on tunnels so there's at least the concern of liability, though that'll free up even more coins for bomb spam :) IIRC Verra's fixed the "spawn at contested point" issue in CTF for the next build.

 

Has also been done afaik, was all part of the same task "spawning issues". Not sure if it'll working in TTH as it's not a priority at the moment. Would be happy to have a link to the coin balance calcs, though we take most of that stuff with a grain of salt at best :)

 

Ah, i thought there might have been some more general comparision of items vs coins - found the post in question. Indeed, bolts are probably too cheap, the economy in general is something to look at next build.

 

Are you all taking into account bolt slashing? Bolts are kind of easier for one person to prevent than kegs, but I guess you do have to stand there and do nothing else...

Making their flying hitboxes bigger and easier to hit with arrows might be another change to look at (if that's possible)

 

Outposts had several hard-to-avoid bugs partially as a result of the capturing, and on the servers I ended up frequenting most at the time (Action Unlimited) outposts were removed in favour of tunnels.

I know some people liked them, and the idea of a forward spawn building is nice, but without any sort of strategic overview and a ten second spawn time, there isn't much planning that goes into where to spawn, meaning many players just end up spawning at the front, facilitating easy-mode back-capping.

The spawn feature isn't likely to get removed as it stands, but I personally feel that it's a bad one.

 

Also why deploying a single warboat loses a TTH game about 50% of the time. I always find that hilarious.

 

Honestly, even just removing spawning from ballistas and leaving everything else as-is would be an improvement imho.

I mean, sure, spawning up front can be shiny at times. And, sure, having to defend your tunnels correctly can be a pain at times. But, ultimately, forward tunnels are a pretty effective replacement for a forward spawn & learning to trap under your tunnel isn't that much of a drag.

The only further change I'd maybe suggest is (assuming you've done the above) is to make tunnels only connect to tunnels directly to their left & right (rather than the current model where you can skipp all the tunnels in the middle of a chain). Ofc, this would mean getting to the front line == repeated hopping (instead of being insta-teleporting to the front); but, on the flip side, it would mean that enemies (say, with a lit keg) couldn't insta-teleport to your base.

But yeah. Tunnels are simply better and make for less BS game-flow. Why do we still have forward spawns again?

 

Maybe, but then maybe not. Am divided on that. If we removed class changing as well then there'd be more incentive for actual forward bases (like, with shops and everything). As things currently stand what things tend towards is a mega base at each end of the map and a mangled, uninhabitable, no-man's land in between.

 

Well, price could (should?) definitely be revisited if things like respawn & changing class were removed, but considering that keeping class-swapping will still make for those "oh dear, an archer climbed up, swapped class, and is now royally fucking over our whole base. All because some nubby pub left a ballista on top of our tower. Oh deary, deary me..." BS moments which epitomise the lameness that is backcapping.

Completely separating siege from reinforcement & utility would help lessen the extreme potential for the colossal tactical cockups that a poorly placed ballista can cause atm. Also, to directly address your comment

I feel that it's actually that dual nature (siege and forward base in one) that makes ballistas (and their placement) so fiddly. Simplify things, make them pure siege (probably with a reduced price tag, as discussed), and there'll be 50% less dramas with them in pub play overnight. Promise.

tl;dr
We've already got stuff that allows us to quickly get to the front (tunnels). We've already got stuff that allows us to swap classes and get building resupplies at the front (shops). Having either (let alone both) of these functions on another piece of front equipment just seems like... bloat.