Devlog Weekly News – KAG Update for Halloween

First things first: bring back arrow collision. Archer combat is campy and cancerous without it.

Second: Ked I don't see your side of the story at all. How does increasing the pace of play and throwing things everywhichway and that through the air at mach 7 "ruin every match"? Not even in the sense of balance yet, tramps were my favorite things in the game besides kegs (partly caused they made for a lot of stupid/clutch keg saves ;3). "Most people like winning, they don't really care how they do it." Coming from a veteran player who doesn't give two shits about winning (I'm the leader of Nova for fucks sake xD), I could care less about balance, I just want the game to be fun again ;_; (p.s. those people are bad and aren't playing the game right ;3)

"Even making them cost more sounds like a horrible idea to me because then that strictly designates them to being used only in towers, bringing them outside would be dumb because they could easily be destroyed then."... what? Wouldn't an increased price make their placement more crucial and make them less spammable, so you wouldn't see them EVERY game?

I think the main reason people deemed tramps overpowered was not their functionality, but rather their renew-ability. People frequently complained that as soon as they broke a tramp, it was immediately back up and their work seemed to amount to nothing. Heavily increased tramp prices would easily counter the previous statement: even with a sawmill, tramp cannons would be hard to get and take time, especially if you can't even carry enough wood for a full one.

PB:
"Like, you really just want to build the exact same thing every game?"
Isn't adding tramp cannons another viable strategy to winning, instead of doing the exact same meta of build a tower, tunnel forward, build tunnels -_- Its another branch to victory that makes the game less linear and more dynamic, which diversifies gameplay and makes the game more interesting

"And if the enemy makes one too, welp no forward walls I guess"
Already pretty nullified by defensive siege spam, which people have provided many possible solutions for, and in theory new tramps would do the same thing in function of overruning the enemy tower right O_O

And for people who wanna make the (IMO stupid) argument that catas are there to fulfill tramps' shoes, I say this. Who wants to either a) wait around for 10 min for someone to launch you, or b) sit in the cata all day and fire people. Neither sound very fun to me. IMO catas are made to be frontline tramps, as they are much more durable also function as a catapult O_o, having a tramp network in back is a simpler, more user friendly (requires only 1 person) that has more control, but is easily sabotaged by the enemy.

I'd hate to see mine drops go, they're really the only reason I ever used mines(because they're stupid and funny, a general theme of the stuff I like in kag). I'd prefer to keep the mine catch option, but keep the activation time the same. The counter balance would be that knights can destroy mines a lot easier. p.s. mines need to be 1 hit from builder or atleast not move it when you hit it, because attempting to defuse one and launching it into an ally or a corpse and most likely gibbing yourself in the process isn't very fun

Oh and remove the ability to pick up tramps in tdm because it ruins the flow of the map and gives archers more of an advantage, which they don't really need in tdm O_O
I probably missed some stuff but oh well =3

 

ok well i understand you have your own opinion, i already discussed my opinion already.

 

Just... no. Tramp cannons were bad, the 5-tramps-placed-diagonally-on-the-same-spot ones were incredibly effective and could be made in mere seconds once mastered, with only 800 wood, which is very easy to acquire with a tree farm. The effort-reward was just ridiculous. These could also be placed behind your tower, and were hard to destroy, as the opponent would first have to get over/destroy your tower, which they can't even get near because of the rain of knights and kegs. Making tramps cost more doesn't solve the issue either. Then its just a matter of whoever-gets-the-tramp-cannon-first wins, because you could just suppress the enemies attempts to make one of their own. In general cost increases/decreases are not recommended as they usually don't solve the primary issues that created the imbalance in the first place. The new tramps are very good, they are far more intuitive and are actually fun to use now (except in tdm, but it sounds like that'll get patched). And that's the most important part for me. Tramp cannons were never fun, they were just a means of winning, and a lazy one at that. There were never actually any legitimately enjoyable moments. The new tramps have only been out for a couple of weeks and I can easily say that I've had more fun with them in that time than in the entire lifetime of the old tramps.

On the topic of mines... I largely appreciate the changes. They're actually useful now, and fulfill a more intuitive role. However I (and lots of of others) have identified two big issues;
1-They kill you for doing nothing wrong.
ie a team-mate detonated them. This problem is simply that the insta-kill radius includes those that did not detonate the mine. This is easily solved by them being shieldable (if you're not the one detonating them), or perhaps a decrease in damage with distance (similar to bombs). However the general consensus seems to be that the one that walked into should definitely die, even if they shield it (which I agree with).
2-They are not equally destroyable across the classes.
Simply put, archer are far better at diffusing them, while knights cannot diffuse them effectively at all. This is once again a simple fix; making them be broken in one hit by builders and 3-4 slashes (6-8 jabs) by knights. This would drastically reduce the clutter that mines can lead to (another big issue).

 

8x, ballista bomb bolts obviously have many issues with them xD. For starters acquiring siege is allot easier than it should when it comes to gold cost and the shear amount of gold each side has on almost every map. But on top of that, placing ballistas on top of extremely tall towers to the point where it's litterally glitching In the ceiling barrier is insane. I feel if you shoot a bolt and it hits the top of the map, the bolt should be destroyed. Then there's actual bolt cost, one round of bolts cost 30 coins, so for 30 coins you get 12 more shots or 4 more shots if using explosive bolts. So basically 2 fire arrows= 4 better than bomb arrow bomb arrows. I think the price for more bolts should at least be brought up to 50 coins or even more. 30 coins for 12 non explosive bolts makes allot of sene though, just right now ballistas are just too damn op. Yes I know you can just get bomb arrows and blow up a ballista for 100 coins but sometimes it isn't that simple. I honestly feel if changes similar to the ones I suggested are implemented then ballistas should take at least 3-4 bomb arrows. One last thing to consider is how much money you get for killing people with the ballista, it can balloon really fast and even if bolts costed 50 per clip you could easily fill the whole ballista by simply using the ballista to get coins, there probably needs to be a rework of coins gained via ballista kills in order to seal the deal and make sure ballistas are relatively ballanced

 

I've never understood the bolt system. It's shizz'.
It should've been possible to choose between bomb- and bolts.

 

If ballistas get nerfed the only thing left to nerf is water :3, when that day comes kag will be a lot better as a whole when it comes to spamming one strategy to win, people will actually try to build in order to get enough coins for ballista. The idea is if all the easy strats go away people will finally be forced to play the game the correct way, everyone will get better for it too.

 

Ehh, feel the only 2 last things that are water bomb tier are actual water bombs and ballistas. I really don't think il look for anything else I dislike besides the game litterally just being buggy, which can't be fixed for the most part as far as I know. I'm also pretty sure mak is the only one that gives me shit for hating water, from what I've seen everyone else is in agreement with me (people from the discord). In terms with the water = noob tube subject, yes I see your point here, but water if used correctly can litterally just kill you outright, my problem with water is that there shouldn't be something in the game that is 90% unavoidable and basically kills you (or even more people depending on the situation). You might be thinking "well what about kegs". Kegs do indeed explode on impact and instakill, but the thing about kegs is that they are pretty obviously there so you won't be surprised by one, you need hight to blow them up on impact, usually it's more of a 50 50 when trying to catch one. Yes you can just hold the keg for a long time before it blows up and then chuck it so it blows up as it's hitting the ground, but even this has downsides, it allows ample time to get out of the way, archers can try to ruin your plan as well. What I'm saying is that mostly everything in the game is avoidable as long as you know what your doing, but water is still in that (I don't give a shit about anything you can do because I'm unavoidable 90% of the time) zone. A good nerf to water would be a couple things, make them not blow up on impact, make the stun shieldable. If both of those nerfs happened I could really see a dramatic price decrease to about 20 coins, I litterally wouldn't feel horrible about using them and at that point I would consider them balanced.

 

I honestly find water to be perfectly fine for how it is now, no matter how "cheap" people may refer to it as. It went from wide, unblock able radius stunning to a much more accurate (even if you get stunned in extremely close proximity; pretty sure you used to be able to shield it long ago) 20 coin support shot for archer. An all around good defense and offense arrow type. I don't like the idea of someone "playing the game correctly" being the main focus. Unorthodox methods have always been the fun in KAG, but all those different methods and building styles are now being forced on a path of the same thing every game for the sake of balance. I don't mind balancing, even if it's changing major mechanics way after testing and release, but it's slowly making the game stale and unfun in my opinion.

All in all, people will always find something wrong with KAG even at some minute level. Went from no WAR -> make archers quick! -> legolas -> no legolas -> no bomb bouncing -> make mines cheaper after nerf -> make mines more expensive for more changes -> etc old stuff and more old changes.

 

Are you referring to water arrows or water bombs @Yagger ?

 

Both.

 

Brought a tear to my eye when water arrows were 100X WORSW in terms of detection and radius and we got changes implemented by hitting Geti with a combined weekly worth of about 5000 coins. ;^)

 

Ive played a lot today and i must say there is not currently a simple way (almost none) to defuse a bomb as a knight in the middle of a battle.
I died 3 times today (i know, it's not that much, but anyway) trying both ways, exploding my own mines with enemy corpses and defusing enemie's with ally bodies. In flat terrain it could be achieved, but when the mine is somewhat obstructed and you should jump *not that* close to it, it's suicide for sure. Even at 3-4 blocks distance.
I'm fine with how mines are now. I don't think that less slashes to defuse them is the answer, but i do think if you throw bodies on it, the radius or/and the damage of the explosion should be reduced.

 

Alright back to continue my ranting:

I'll be honest, tramps are dead. In the past week I haven't seen them once in ctf ;_; You guys are aiming down the same the route that boats took with every other "questionable" (anything that isn't boring) aspect of the game.

Water: I've never had a problem with it. Some of the most enjoyable games involve me (generally the strongest knight in the pub match) using half of my focus just not to get watered down by Tater, who is an incredible archer and could easily shut down anything I was doing (even watering me out of the air mid bomb jump/keg drop xD). It makes getting something done all the more satisfying, and another nerf (which I know isn't gonna happen) would make the game even more linear. (p.s. Geti I prefer 7 ;3)

Archer combat: Arrow collisions need to be re-implemented. There's simply no effective way for an archer to defend himself out in the open anymore. People said that they were too luck based and random. So what? They made for much more hectic gameplay, and the most skilled players could readily block incoming arrows. The lack of arrow collisions strips players of yet another powerful tool.

Siege: Alright I understand everyone's concern with defensive siege spam. It's annoying. Cancerous. Makes a desolate wasteland out of mid. This is at all true, but I don't think the proper way of improving the game is by steadily nerfing everything. Adding another counter, such as pb's example of making water push them around (not the best counter I would choose, but fun and gets the point across) is a much more interesting way to make the game. Instead of ripping tools away, like eliminating bal spawns (Lefty's devastating strategy) or (for me) completely redesigning the functionality of tramps, why not add something that would counter it a lot more easily? It would give players even more things to play with and end up with a more dynamic game, instead of driving them away from all but the most basic strategies.
QUOTE="Potatobird, post: 367631, member: 13070"]Because KAG is a symmetrical game, it will always be 100% balanced.[/QUOTE]
I honestly couldn't agree more pb. Yes, some strategies are/were stronger than others, but I find that people complain that things are unbalanced or broken simply because it counters the way they like to play the game. Not to gun down on Ked or anything but just as an example, he has explicitly told me his favorite part of the game is swordplay, and that he would never grow tired of it. He hates water because it's a simple counter that anyone can use to end his sword monopoly, while in most other waterless cases he would come out on top.

A different (kinda weird) example: I can guarantee that more than 80% of players have at least some minor problem with tunneling (not the warp), because it counters almost every other strategy, from defensive siege, to massive walls, to tramp cannons, to straight knight/archer play. But there's those few players (even though I hate them for their work) who love to rat and be a "sapper", or just steal the flag for victory. Good for them, they are enjoying the game and can play how they want to play. Everyone else will generally just be really salty about it and say they ruin the game. But they really only have the option to counter tunnel(which is really easy against inexperienced players, which are the majority of tunnelers). It's at their disposal, but they just don't want to play the game that way. People always cry about getting maps that discourage tunneling, but introducing a better counter that other classes could use (maybe re-purposing by allowing them to break dirt? (I know I'll get a lot of shit for saying that, I know about the cancer when siege broke dirt, I'm just throwing ideas though)) give players another tool on their tool belt and would push for a less linear game style.

What I'm trying to get at is this:
Removing all these functionalities is a great way of killing interest in the game by driving people to use the same old conventional methods, and for a small game like KAG, I don't know if it's a very good idea to push away the small community you have ;_;

lol rip that quote

 

I mean just because it isn't possible to absolutely annihilate a team through keg spam via tramps doesn't mean that there aren't other strategies too (knights helping their builders at mid and vice versa). After initially being pretty salty with the mine changes I've grown to accept them and think it is cool what is being done with them now. Additionally, I like what people are doing with tramps now, using them more as an actual tool to assist teammates and not for the same old stack a bunch of tramps together, leap to the enemies base, tramp cannon strat. While there will always be ballista spam to forever obliterate teams, at least there is some actual strategy required now in using tramps. Although you may think that the changes are driving people back to old conventional methods, I think its worth adding that after people realized tramp cannons were powerful, the strategy of tramp cannons itself became old and conventional.