[781][Gen] What do you think would be the best way to stop stalemates happening?

Necroing this thread somewhat.
I fully agree that we need to deal with the odd stalemate. This shows that the game mechanics are balanced and the game relies on a skilled player, circumstance, or pure grindage to win. I have encountered quite a pile of stalemates recently, some that were broken by effort and perseverance, and others that were broken by the griefing of a single individual who wanted to get in another game before mommy tucked him into bed. All in all, good times.

I'm going to post this idea here as opposed to starting a new topic as it is not a new idea, nor is it a particularly good one, but I think it might help somewhat..
We need a Rouge, Scout, or Sapper class.
The melee ability of a knight, but without the power, combined with the mobility of an archer, but without the extreme range. Lots of speed and climbing ability with explosives.The rule for this class to be built upon should be 'Don't get hit, and strike back twice as hard'. If its a difficult class to play well then it is a good class.
That's all... let me know what you think.

 

Heck of a lot better idea than making a new class, for sure... As long as the time limit was 30min+ I go for it.

 

Used to have a 60 min timer for games in classic, but I surprisingly haven't seen one for beta in ages. The rush for win game when it hits 10 minutes is intense.

 

Maybe just make tickets activate after 30 minutes or so? Or make the timer signify 'sudden-death' ie. no more lives.

 

Though I haven't read the rest of the thread and am unsure if anyone mentioned it before but I feel like maybe stalemates could be caused by class balance(the huge talk about archer balance could be relative)...mainly the builder.
A lot of people say the builder has a lot of overlooked power, which he does. The issue of balance comes from builders having a massive amount of defense but almost no offense when it comes to what their powers apply to.

Maybe they need some offense boost? Something keeping them in the battle field and not instantly dying every time they try to build a wall in an area outside of the main base. A lot of games I see that don't stalemate tend to be those where one team gets a forward tower built...sadly a lot of other games I have seen go back into stalemate are from those fresh new towers and bases on the front lines being easily destroyed by kegs or mines(it takes a while to make a strong tower in the middle of a game, not to mention one with so much death happening).

 

The thing is, the power of a builder runs out when the enemy team is effective, and the resources drain.

On most maps there is actually not a lot of stone laying around, so you can just keep destroying it and keep a mental note of when you finally break their back and they have 30 and wood left per spawn only.

 

The problem with tweaking the offense/defense balance is that if you make it too easy to break stalemate then you often have games that end within just a few minutes. I think the real key to giving KAG matches nice pacing (in terms of both avoiding stalemates and having a satisfying early game) is to develop a better tech progression in both TTH and CTF where defenses are difficult to break at first but overall time more offensive tools are doled out to the point where offense is overwhelming.

 

Bomb ballista? When I get one up in a good spot, the enemy is usually done (unless it's that retarded puddle map with the second flag in a bedrock cave)

 

As has been suggested, a timer or a ticket system is one way to counter lingering stalemates.

The downside of this approach is that it might change the flow of the game more than we think, especially for the Builder. I'm not saying that we should protect the art of minecrafting, but we should think if rushing things will take some fun and creativity away from one of the classes. One thing to consider is that not every Builder joins the game when it is about to start.

If this will be verified as a problem, then we need to weigh which is worse: the odd stalemate or taking some of the fun out of one of the three classes.

Another option is to try to encourage teamwork and building momentum. It is tough, or near impossible, with a collection of random people, but when it happens, these are the best conclusions for stalemates in my opinion. The feeling when a lingering match starts nudging in one way more than the other is awesome. This usually happens when there is only a small group of people left, and all the battles happen in one location.

One way to increase teamwork and building momentum is improving communication. If a mere pointing emote isn't enough, we could allow players to pinpoint key points of interest. Perhaps this feature could only be available to the highest scoring player of the team (?), who would act as the captain in this sense. High score doesn't automatically make you a strategist, but if the score system is designed properly, the highest scoring player of the team should be a person who knows what he/she is doing.

 

Thats not a bad set of ideas. i like the potential waypiont system, the only problem being is that most new players/reviewers seem to think that KAG is just hard to grasp because of the chaos. This is actually a complement i think its only, a waypoint may be an unnecessary layer of complication. What you said about teamwork is right though.

 

I think a timelimit would be best. Personally I prefer the current way it works, I love when it drags out, but adding tickets and what not would make the team of 'noobs' lose everytime. If any of these 2 should be added, it should be an optional time limit (Host decides if it should be on, and for how long a round can last)

 

Would help if those dang ballistas wouldn't get captured if ANYONE breaks through the frontlines...The whole sitting in to instantly capture it shouldn't happen with enemies around...odd how the ballista is practically a land warboat yet is super easy to capture.

Also optional tickets and optional timelimits on servers would be nice, I kinda miss ticket matches, just a little.

 

Hmm... the idea of creating a better tech progression sounds nice and could help even out the pacing. One idea that comes to mind is perhaps having building tiers where you require all of the tier 1 buildings (and perhaps all the upgrades unlocked) in order to start building tier 2 buildings.

For example:

Tier 1: Builder workshop & Kitchen
Tier 2: Knight workshop & Archer workshop (requires all tier 1 buildings and/or upgrades, if any)
Tier 3: Siege workshop & Ship workshop (requires all tier 1 & 2 buildings and/or upgrades)

With each tier of buildings requiring different amounts of resources with the gold being used to upgrade them:

Tier 1 - requires small amounts of wood and stone (no upgrades or very few upgrades)
Tier 2 - requires moderate amounts of wood and stone (upgrades cost low amount of gold)
Tier 3 - requires high amounts of wood and stone (upgrades require moderate amount of gold)

Would also suggest perhaps adding the option of having workshops start with less options available and upgrading them with small amounts of gold. For example a newly constructed knight workshop (or archer workshop) only allows you to change the knight class and that's it, in order to unlock the bombs ,builders would have to gather some gold and perform a one time upgrade which unlocks ALL knight workshops. The upgrading would also require a bit of time and you could only perform one upgrade per workshop ( 1 knight upgrade and 1 archer upgrade at the same time). For example upgrading to bombs would take X minutes and only after the upgrade finished would you be able to upgrade tot he next level (water bombs) but you could at the same time upgrade the archer workshop.

Knight workshops upgrades example:

Standard - Can switch to knight
Upgrade I - can switch to knight and has access to bombs (Cost: 30 gold)
Upgrade II - can switch to knight and has access to bombs and water bombs (Cost: 50 gold )
Upgrade III - can switch to knight and has access to bombs, water bombs and kegs (Cost: 70 gold)

This idea was inspired from most RTS games where you need lower tier buildings in order to build the more higher level ones or require certain upgrades and time in order to progress up the tech tree. It might also make gold a bit more valuable and it could help avoid having catapults or ballista appear on the battlefield in the first 5-10 minutes of the match. Of course it does mean that archers and knights would be weaker at the start and have to rely on builders searching for gold in order to unlock the workshop upgrades so that might not be for everyone's liking.

The amount of gold required for the upgrades as well as the time necessary for finishing the said upgrades could be tweaked so that it would take say around 20-30 minutes total to upgrade them all and around 400-500 gold. The upgrades could be done at any specific workshops (can only perform knight upgrades at knight workshop) and would be permanent, maybe only lose the upgrades if you lose ALL your specific workshops? Too soon to say if that would be a good idea but something to consider.

Overall I'm not 100% sure if this might work as well as I first thought, I might have missed something given how you need to take into a count a lot of factors but I consider it a worthy shot.

 

Remove the part about there needing to be time and keep the idea of gold upgrading the tiers and you're onto a good idea for a mod. Anything that drags out games more though, like removing destructive capabilities, is not usually a good thing.

 

I like the captain idea but one way to get a really high score is to either a) score-whore (which does not necessarily benefit the team) or b) play for 10 hours straight. I think maybe something like a vote triggered at the start of the game and every ten minutes (or whatever) into the game would be better

 

I think land vehicles like the catapult and ballista should be buffed. Even though they're seige weapons they're usually parked on a tower or something, because of their poor range, mobility, and they're really vulnerable.

So I think if you
1. increase the firing angle to 45 degrees
2. increase the firing velocity on all projectiles other than players (that can stay as is), BUT add the same velocity dampening as on the archer's arrows so height doesn't effect range as much
3. make it so the enemy can't enter/interact with the vehicle until they've captured it
4. let the person in the gunner's seat determine which way the vehicle faces (so ballistas can "back up" without showing the enemy their back)
5. make it's driving less weird and bouncy

We'd see the catapult used a lot more on the offense, which means more castles getting busted and less stalemates

Also I think tunnels should be cheaper, it's hard maintaining a steady offense which is why stalemates tend to be so back-and-forth. Not only do builders have to invest in two of these tunnels but they also have to build a defense around it so it's not destroyed immediately, and that's pretty costly.

Last thing, life boost to all vehicles/ships.

Just my two cents.

 

Here are my thoughts on buffing them.

1. Make them drive way, way slower, but give them the ability to climb blocks up to 2 in height. Also this makes it so you can't have some moron jumping in and careening at over 500 miles an hour. Honestly though, I wish cata's/ballista's were drivable with only one operator because I am so tired of some nooby idiot driving me off my tower.
2. Give us a "flip" option for when it falls over.
3. Less of a cata/siege buff, but make gravity a little lighter the higher you go on a map/the closer to the top of the map you are. This way towers built really high would be able to shoot arrows and fire rocks/bolts further and knights could jump a little further. (Also holy shit if they miss the platform they have a long fall down)
4. Also, they shouldn't be able to drive over and instacrush enemies. That's just dumb.

I love all of these. Do these too.

Increase the time it takes to fire, to make up for all these buffs. I can often just quickly spam a quick tap to hit enemies up close. It should take at least a second to charge. Full charge should go further, but take longer to charge up.