10 years to destroy and a second to build

@Geti Right that's a good point; if we have slower building the quick wins will be even more likely. That's why we should have an accompanying decrease in the initial strength or availability of destructive tools. Bombs could even be delayed until a few minutes into the game. This would allow a nice flow to the game where it's not going to end in like three minutes but by the time the game has begun to drag on big destructive tool come by to say "ok we've had fun but it's time to rap this up" finishing things up with big explosions and/or collapses.

People will most certainly be mad about slower building, but like with the removal of notch climbing the population will soon adapt and we'll all reap great benefits. It is very important that it'd implemented well though. IMO having a pause after making a block is the worst thing as it feels like an arbitrary delay, one thing that could be done is making it so that one you first hold down the build button there's a ghost of the block you intend to build and then, holding down LMB, your character makes several quick taps until the building is completed. This would be best done with a nice accompanying sound like bapbapBAP.

This would slow down building but it would also limit the potential for the other sillinesses of builder, being able to instantly cover over doorways and tunnels and entomb themselves unstoppably.

 

It all comes down to teamwork, persistence and strategy. If one team has a height advantage due to the shape of the map then yeah, your going to have a hard time dealing with it. With bedrock being all over the damn place its hard to tunnel under and destroy their wall like in alpha.

Bombs need to not destroy dirt at all, there is your biggest terrain erosion problem right there, and the solution to it. Get rid of all that extra bedrock. And while your at it, make it so you cannot destroy seeds, tired of trees getting killed off permanently.

With the extra bedrock gone, I'm sure you can do a little tunneling next time.

 

Fast =/= skill. Are those modded servers where everyone runs and jumps at ridiculous speeds and spews 10 bombs a second the most skilled?

@Ej is fastest the most skilled gamemode in Starcraft?

Either way I'm not exactly proposing to slow the game down. What I am proposing is to make defenses better at the start of the game but much harder later on.

 

Yes, it is. If we are talking about the game speed (I know we're not), Fastest in Brood War is the speed you actually play on. The thing is, the faster it is the more it pushes you to the borderline of your mechanical skill that cannot be simply raised by "focusing" and requires actual practice to maintain and improve.

I think there's many ways currently to reach the desired state of meta that don't involve slowing down a certain part of the game.
Think about it the other way around. Defensively, builders will be easier to punish but:
a) it will be even less fun to play builder with
1. delayed block selection and rotation
2. delayed block placement
b) while it might help solve some problems with defensive builders, offensive ones will be fucked beyond anything. You already have troubles placing blocks fast, with that nerf it would be super super hard.
c) it simply lowers the skill cap as it is easier to select, rotate and place blocks faster when the maximal speed is low. Lowering skill ceiling is something that everyone's been trying to avoid to not let Beta go the way of Classic.

On the completely different hand, I don't think the meta needs to be interfered "from the outside" at all. People are (slowly because slowly but still) learning how to make proper start up structure and not fall to early aggression and I'm sure that at some point it will get fully figured out without a need to further complicate the game. Keep in mind that there's also a potential player influx coming and it will definitely help speed up the learning process.

Actually, since you've already mentioned Brood War, the most beautiful thing about this game was that indeed it was a macro oriented RTS but pressure in Brood War lasted from early to late game. You had to always make combat units and even when the game was in the very early stage you could do poking with workers and scouting units.
I think that ideas like delaying bombs are most certainly good (since you aren't meant to spawn with 200 coins and bomb spam minute 1 in the first place) but keep in mind that what we won't to avoid is slowing down the game too much. Slowing down building and delaying offense would almost certainly lead to situations when there's 2 teams minecrafting for 10 minutes and then you have that battle of bomb spam from door forts start and never end.
I think we should try to achieve the tempo where early game remains aggressive, it starts varying more in mid and late game basically becomes a fest where everyone can show his best at dealing with everything thrown at him (in KAG, that would be literal).
I also think that this state with current game is easily achievable if:
a) coins on every player are set to 0 each new round
b) earning coins is not a thing during build time (frankly, I don't know if it is now as I float around 200 all the time)



Looking at this rant right now, it probably doesn't make much sense to too many people but I'm sure it makes to those who it was aimed at.

 

Perhaps a long range siege weapon would be a better choice, if they keep catapult up there why not have Trebuchet that can only be loaded with boulders? I mean you would fire that thing and it would be no problem with wall campers, the disadvantage of this device is that it has to be built by builder first in fixed location and can't be moved.

 

Yo Geti, I remeber from the KAG Art Booklet that there used to be (Or was planned to be) a feature where your builders would collect items and toss the stacks into a workshop frame, and as that went on, another builder who might be near by would come in and press like.. "E" to build the workshop with the available items currently dropped in that area.

I feel, like something of that calibur should be done, I know that you Devs wont be adding in anything new or anything, but here's an idea for slow building. Remember way back, maybe 7 months ago or something, where you had blueprints to make a certain workshop work? Well, how about we bring that back, as well as adding in that possibly added in feature of collecting a pile of items to build said workshop.

That could also be the same with like.. blocks as well. Say you need to have stone blocks, a builder can go out, mine stone and bring it to like.. a storage mat. Then, another builder can come along and push some button to craft all those stones into stone bricks. Something like that.

 

The problem with the blueprints was that people spammed them around.

 

But wait. What if you put in a limit.. an extra resource to make the blueprints I think.. Maybe like the reeds that the egyptians used centuries ago (I think called Papaya)... or something to that level. Said stuff grows slowly, and you need a few reeds to actually make a blueprint.
It's that, or have research extra slow.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 11, 2013, Original Post Date: Oct 11, 2013 ---

Thanks. c:
Sadly, I didnt mean a workshop as in like.. workshop workshop.. I mean a placeholder for players to drop their junk onto.
To clear up what I said before, there's two placeholder things. The mat, a.k.a Stockpile. And there's the Workshop frame. Players drop their raw loads onto the stockpile and another player comes in to craft the raw junk into blocks, which are auto sent to storage. The Workshop frame is the same, but instead you drop your pile of raw junk into that, and another builder comes in to use said stuff on the workshop.. it's like how it works now, get wood to make a frame, and press E to choose a workshop you want. My idea is to do that, but instead a player places down a blueprint which spawns a frame, and other players will drop their junk inside said frame, then another comes in to build the workshop.

Simple, ya?
[Messed up before... feeling stupid as fuck atm xD]

 

I made a post somewhat related to this topic: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/classes-vs-money-and-kd.16565/#post-243948

 

Teamwork can bring a tower down in no time.
Maybe instead of coming up with 1001 ideas to nerf builders... you should think about ways to make teamwork easier.

Some ideas (just brainstorming):

-The player with highest score in a team gets an "aura" that boosts nearby teammates. This encourages players to band together and attack together. The minimap shows the position of the "hero".
-Make it less risky for builders to help in the attack, like by not losing all their resources/items if they die. Maybe that way we'll see more builders supporting the attacks. Make it so you keep some items when you die (like drills).
-Crates are not destroyed when you pick an item inside, so helpful players can keep them full of goodies for the attack. Also, add a feature to make custom signs for the crates(a crate with a <3 icon, or a boulder icon, etc)
-Make players with higher score more noticeable in the chat, like a bigger font, so their pleads for help have a higher chance of being answered.
-Add a tunnel to the singleplayer tutorial, so people know what it does.

 

been saying that for like I don't know how many builds, the terrain is way too fancy. The maps that are just like the first post shows are bad and that has nothing to do with building or builders or whatever. It's because huge block of terrain obstacles are really really hard to pass and make the game frustrating. In this game: flatter is better. Make flat maps and the problem goes away.

Otherwise, granted that you don't get a shitload of time pre game to build, player build towers have never been much of an issue. They are resonnably hard to take down, which they should. But we don't need a hall at the bottom of a moutain while the last capture point is at the top of a moutain. This is infuriating.

 

Solution (according to picture), tunneling obviously :D

 

I got an idea!

Instant building is just a trademark of KAG, and its really fun! Like playing with Legos. No need to take it out.

But!

Mined rocks are all crude and raw, so its a bit silly that you can immediatly build blocks with them. How about we make stone blocks an item?
1- You can convert raw stone into blocks via either a Masonery shop or the default builder shop. Its essential so it would have the 1st slot. You ''buy'' blocks for 10 stone each.
2- Same goes with stone doors and traps. Both are first purchased and can then be placed like normal. This process is slower, allowing knights an opportunity for early rushes.
3- To make building easier at the start phase, 10 stone blocks would be provided at the tent. 3 blocks would also be provided during the game.

This would make stone, the heavy defense of the game, slower to build without being too contrived, thus solving the stalemate problem.

Also, this would not affect wood in any way. It would remain the same : a cheap and quick way to build defense, but fragile and temporary. Also, why can't we convert wood doors into stone doors?

I know this solution has some flaws. Feel free to point them out and discuss. Take it for what its worth.

Secondly, another solution would be the dropship type approach. Only available later in the game, it allows the team racking up the kills and cash to buy a tool to get across the huge stone monolith locking victory up. It would necessarely be VERY expensive, so its only accessed in the late-game, like 400 coins or so. An airship would do, but I also thought dragons would be very cool (see my dragon idea thread).

Maybe change the boat shop to ''vehicle'' shop, and make the airship available. I KNOW you have a balloon sprite already Geti, I've seen it .

EDIT : Isn't there an airship thread? Heh. Created an airship thread here : https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/airships.17108/

 

Apologies if I'm not supposed to necro threads this old, but I didn't see a reference to that in the rules and my suggestion ties quite strongly to this one, and we are asked to use old threads instead of making new ones when possible, so... were we go.

I think this is a problem that afflicts not just Kag, but every game that tries to combine building with fighting on said buildings. Try playing Vanilla Minecraft versus someone and see if you can ever get past their infinite dirt wall. I believe the problem arises from the contradiction between how fortress building works in real life and how that is usually translated into games. In real life, building is extremely slow and breaking things extremely fast. Fortifications only exist because the're built before the battle happens. However, in Kag, with the exception of the meager build time and space given at the start of the game, we are trying to build them *during* the battle. If the proportion between building and breaking was anywhere near realistic, this would be completely nonviable, as well as quite tedious. However, since the whole point of KaG is being a game where both building and battling happens, the developers have altered that proportion to make building a lot, a lot faster than what would be the case in real life.

...Except there's a problem with that approach, namely that its contradictory. It makes building relevant by making it possible to build during battle, but the possibility of building during battle renders most building possibilities irrelevant, because they can be ignored by simply being sealed in, bridged over, or built over.

There's an additional problem, which is that it lends a element of chunkiness and turtling to the gameplay. I'm talking, off course, of when a builder saves himself by building around himself, or when a builder seals himself tunneling under the earth, or when he seals a corridor on the face of a bunch of knights after they finally made a breakthrough, etc. I think everyone would agree that such tactics are mostly unfun for all the involved, yet the're effective in the current meta.

However, I think simply making building a lot slower is not the solution either. As said above, this would make building tedious and would massively decrease its impact on gameplay. If, say, it took twice as long to build a block than to destroy it, that would be enough to make all but the most basic of buildings completely moot.

Rather, I think the solution, although I realize this is a massive departure from the current gameplay and would require significant changes to the game, is to approximate the process of building to how it works in real life, that is, to have nearly all the building happen *before* the battle. We already have a building time at the beginning of the battle, but I believe this is not enough. We need a stronger separation between the moments of building and battling.

What I propose is, first, expanding the initial build time. Make the area each team can build on larger, give them a few more minutes, and more resources. Also lock everyone into being a builder to avoid early arrow/bomb exchanges. Catapults and such should not be usable either (but probably build-able). Other than that, current digging and building times would be unaltered.

However, once the battle begun, the rules of the game as we know it would change significantly. All building would be locked off with the exception of very basic and very easy to break bridge/stairs blocks that would be used on sieges. To compensate for the loss of the ability to repair forts or seal tunnels, terrain would also get much harder, so demolishing buildings and tunneling would take significantly longer.

Despite the width of the changes, I actually think this would make the game more enjoyable for all "traditional" player types. Builders would not get to perform their art during most of the game, its true, but this would be compensated by a much greater room for creativity early on, and the fact that their buildings would actually remain relevant and unaltered long enough for their effectiveness and deviousness to be appreciated. Knights would have a harder time breaking into places, but the fact that said breakings and damages are permanent should compensate for that, plus no more annoying builders walling tunnels and corridors on their faces. Archers would have more stable, reliable positions to shot from, and the knowledge of that any exposed areas in the enemy's defenses will remain so.

I'd like to hear what the community's opinion on this is. I fully expect it to be turned down hard because its a massive change in a community that seems fairly traditional, but nevertheless I think it might lead to some interesting game design discussion, if nothing else.