Build 353 Released!

More and more content being pushed instead of build stability is NEVER a good sign... EVER...

 

I WANT ANIMALLS

 

Bridges change color to blue from red if they are damaged and you put a background block behind them. That's been around since last patch though (and it's a disadvantage to the red team since it makes bridges very easy to repair for blue, with no wood cost. Also you can be red and build blue bridges this way).

We have "animalls", which pick you up and drop you to your death from sky height. I think that's more than enough fauna for one game.

----EDIT----
In desperate times, I at least have a temporary improvisation for combat tactics that seems to work for me: Be more defensive, shield frequently, and don't jab spam. Being knocked around is 1000% more deadly, so jumping on people and dropping corpses (from above) will usually work. Make sure you don't jump on someone with their shield up (i.e. someone who knows you're about to jump on him) because you will get stuck in a perma stun and killed. Also, don't do it from too high or risk becoming a grounded satellite until you hit a wall at hyperspeed. Slashes are way more useless in 1v1 combat in, say, a tunnel, because a slash seems to stun both players if the other had his shield up, so that it can't really break a stalemate.
There are so many new rage inducing ways to die, so you might as well be the one exploiting physics.

 

We don't need animals in this game, at least not right now. Yeah, it'd be cool to have some kind of artsy fartsy flair, but it's really fucking low on the priorities list.

What this whole build really boils down to is that when seriously game changing mechanics are introduced, it should go to the test build. I can understand having a group of testers for things like Zombie Fortress and new game modes, but when it comes to the overall game this is stuff that needs to be tested by the community at large. Everyone is obviously going to voice their opinions, negative or otherwise. When we voice a negative opinion, it's not us shit talking the developers. There is a time and place for complaints, and this build's release is a good example. A bad example? When everyone bitched about Zombie Fortress being delayed.

I've always said that complaining about shit will never get us anywhere, but I literally meant complaining about things like delays, things that really don't have any effect on the overall experience of KAG. THIS particular instance is important. That's the whole reason I started a bugs thread in the general discussion, because the more bugs we get weeded out, the better the overall experience can be. We shouldn't be having little tiffs because someone is bitching about infinistun or buggy corpses. We should be pinpointing the bugs that pose the biggest threat to the community.

I've had some negative things to say about this build, but that doesn't mean I'm ungrateful to the developers. MM, Geti, Shad, FLAB and the others are doing a fantastic job with this game. I looked back in the devblog to build 22 and watched some old gameplay videos, and the evolution of this game is both incredibly staggering and amazing. But everything has hiccups.

tl;dr - Quit trying to make us feel bad because we have complaints. We have complaints because we fucking love this game, and we want the game to play well as opposed to playing moderately well. We love the devs, but we need to ensure that all bugs are brought to light.

 

I couldn't agree more with that lasts statement. It would be unthinkable to introduce this game to a friend in its current state, yet one thing I was looking forward to in the future is more popularity and an expanded playerbase. I still play it because combat is a hilarious joke sometimes and it's still rather fun to dick around, but there's no real skill involved when death and damage can happen at any time if you so much as swing your sword at a wall. Since damage is much more random, an arrow or swing might take away 1.5 hearts, or all 3 hearts because the game registers the damage repeatedly; there is no more reward for careful planning, such as bringing a heart with you because you expect to get shot at least once on your way to a destination, when an arrow will not only damage you, but cause you to spontaneously explode three seconds later with the message claiming you "fell to your death." I do like that a lot of things can kill you now, like corpses and even gibs. I don't think there was any need to change the physics, however, as that seems to be the heart of all the problems in this build.

I think the bug reporting process may not be as effective as it could be. Many very simple bugs from the last build (e.g. both teams hearing Red's death noises, damaged bridges turning blue when a background block is placed behind them, extreme instability in the mac port (reversed stereo sound, unresponsive mouse input breaking combat; I realize that macs are always last priority, though)) have not been patched, so I hope there will be a way to convey all this coherently to the developers. Thank goodness the community is relatively small when it counts the most.

 

People get comfortable and they can't except changes well. I understand that if you aren't moving forward that you're most likely going backwards. Updates are needed all the time and i understand that concept. But like sauce said above it's a good idea to test things first before releasing them.

 

Are you even reading our posts hoj? Accepting change has nothing to do with it. If the build was perfectly bug free, fun and skill based and had an entirely different play-style I doubt anyone would complain. But when knight combat is basically a role of the dice between the half-dozen major bugs, you're damn straight I'm gonna get on the forums and bitch. I can accept change. I can accept the concept of a lot of the current build, sans the bugs. What I can't accept is combat that is determined by who gets fucked by a major bug first.

Let me put it like this. This build is like the NBA saying that the basketball is now square. It ain't change that has us bothered. It's the bugs, stupid!

 

Then this wouldnt be KAG without complaints. And knight combat is still knight combat.The rules have just changed....A lot! With a few houers of practice and developing new moves you can become a decent knight in this build.

 

Uhhh, I don't know about that Raron. No matter how good of a knight you are (coughOstricheggscough) you're still vulnerable and prone to getting infinistunned on top of an enemy. I swear I'm not kidding when I say that I was playing on the MOLE Zombie CTF server and this happened... Our team had an underground bunker, kinda like this...




Stuff down here.

A skeleton happened to get stuck down there, so I figured fuck it. I'll shield bash it and put it out of it's misery. What happened instead was one of the doors closed and I somehow became stunned on top of the skeleton. It was completely unable to climb back out because I was on top of it. I clocked how long I was stunned before I finally drank poison... 5 minutes and 31 seconds. That is ridiculous and inexcusable.

Now sure, this new build can be fun, what with shield bashing and enemy into a wall and gibbing them or throwing a corpse at an archer who is bugging you... But then when you realize how wonky combat is, and you get shield bashed into the dirt and explode, or bomb jump into a wall causing instant death... It's not much fun anymore.

I'm gonna copy exactly what Bookmark said about combat in this build;

Spoiler: Click me for quote!

Here let me type out the action and its typical outcomes.

1. Enemy approacheth! Thou pulleth back thine sword for thine swing!
   • You are on higher ground and here's what happens:
     • He is shielding and you slash down on top of him, forcing you across the map at the speed of a light particle and pinballing like a mad man. In this rampage you may kill enemies by simply touching them but you end up dead.
     • He is shielding and you slash him and his stupid grin! You missed! Now you are stuck in a stunlocked state without a chance to do anything. You are left in the hands of the enemy. Drink cyanide or accept your endlessly floating fate!
     • He isn't shielding and you slash him. You hit him, stomp him, but the slash carries on! You are now going over the speed limit in the game and end up smashing into the floor, killing yourself and giving you a suicide with a heavily injured enemy.
     • The slash works and you either break his shield or hit him.
   • You are on leveled ground and here's what happens:
     • He is shielding and you launch towards him like a raging wraith! He shield bashes you and you enter hyperspeed! You age 100 years and are super fragile, you slam into a wall and EXPLODE.
     • He is shielding and you connect your slash with his shield! Sparks go flying! You enter orbital speed backwards and smash against every wall known to the KAG universe hitting friend and foe while taking a hefty 1 heart per smash until death.
     • He isn't shielding and your hit connects! He is slain! X3
   • You are on lower ground and he towers above you! Here is what happens:
     • Your slash fails to hit him. Period.

 

I don't understand how you guys don't see that we're complaining about the major and clear as day bugs. We have a reason, we're not trying to put down the devs like a bunch of trolls. Your white knighting hurts the game more than us bitching about a broken build that seems like a prolonged, cruel april fools joke. Think the devs missed the memo that said april fools ends on the second...

 

About the level ground one: Slashing a shielded knight with your sword no longer gives you the chance to jab him.

 

Well I'll be waiting until next patch to play online again...that much is certain.
I'm not done with this game, cause it's alpha and I trust these devs pretty wholeheartedly. But combat in this patch seems incredibly broken. Not just adjusting to new mechanics and whatnot, nothing makes sense and seemingly random things are now the flow of combat.

 

It is sure that combat is now more hazardous. But the priority is to fix bugs like "crater" trap technique or when a knight kill himself just trying a slash. I found another bug (if someone didn't find it). I bought several bombs and when i had not enough money to buy more I still lost money as if I bought more bombs. I'm waiting for a new update to play again online. I do not want either as some changes that generate debates but which are not finally rectified becoming the flow of combat...:(

 

I'm sorry raron, but the randomness and unintended bugs that seeped through are too much to be a good knight. The hallmark of a good knight was being able to outwit, outmaneuver and generally outplay an opponent(s) and be able to continue on to your next foe with little consequence. This build essentially kills your ability to outplay anyone as having your back to a wall could kill you, being above your opponent can kill you, getting shield bashing can kill you and just BREATHING as a knight can kill you. Sure there's adjustments to be made, and I've made them the best I can. You can't avoid them, period. You can't avoid walls, towers, shields, bombs, arrows, slashes and attacking unless you uninstall the game. Worse than not being able to avoid them, the simple fact of the matter is that even with knowledge of bugs and explicit attempts to abuse them combat is RANDOM as fuck! I'll try and shield bash a guy into a wall before I try and charge up a slash, even if sometimes I'll literally go flying across the world and into a wall and die. I'll try and keep an opponents back to the wall so I get deal that extra damage, even if the damage varies from nothing to insta-death.

But most importantly I'll play archer to avoid playing as a knight, because arrows might be screwed but not nearly as much as knights are.

Just for good measure and as pure anecdote; I've yet to see an epic last stand this patch from the people well known for staging them. Vidar, myself, any variety of good players fall flat on their face because engaging anyone in combat is unfavorable at 0 lives because of its unpredictability and being unable to outmaneuver them as well.

By the way, you guys need to fix the three or four different ways to earn infinite gold this patch... A bit frustrating when a guy can use his own corpse to buy 50 kegs.

I'm tired of arguing now, which is rare for me. If you guys can't see what we're complaining about then I'd suggest you reupdate your KAG and play knight for 15 minutes. The devs understand the bugs by now I hope. I also hope they understand that releasing rushed builds is bad bad bad

 

hey, hey, i didn't call the devs any bad words i just said that the latest update messes with the gameplay. they aren't assholes they just made a stupid update. what truly pissed me off is when anything slams me into a wall, shield bash, bomb blast, plainly even blocking my slash, and then the lame message of "falling to my death" as I die and losing all my coins. i find it dumb that if i die from falling onto spikes or blocks falling on my head that i lose most of my coins. yet when i die from an enemy i lose less coins. i think it should be the other way around D:
is the money gold or coins?
also i feel archers have been come more deadly as they can climb trees and fall on knights for lots of damage

 

Uhm.
If an Archer jumps on a Knight, i don't think the Archer will live enough to tell it.

 

I've done it today. A few times.

 

Same.
At the moment, I generally get killed by walls and corpses more than anything else.
As Patches put it so elegantly:
"Oops, I accidentally bumped into a wall. Better explode."

On the plus side, I can confirm that most of the issues with this build have already been mostly fixed, so you wont have to suffer another build of it! ^__^

 

you may laugh about it I once got shield bashed 4 tiles away from the tower wall, I hit it and exploded, made me rage so hard. I barely play now due to this update.