General Knight Changes

So, apparently... due to the arguments happening here, I had to use 10 bucks just to refuel my jet pack.. just to say this.

Beta's Knights. As they currently stand at this very moment.... rely on only on a 50/50 chance.

Say you have a coin, yea? Flip that said coin. If I say heads and you say tails.. and suddenly the coin says tails.. I get to punch you. This is how slashing works, how two people charging each other with a double slash works. Either 1) The two people who slash totally fail and miss each other for no apparent reason (Meaning the coin somehow stands on one side.)
2) One player slashes and hits stunning the other player and then managing to send in another hit, thus finishing that dude off.
Or 3) One player slashes and hits another player, but unfortunally that slash pushes that player backwards giving him a chance to recover, then he comes in to attack thus activating the Dungeons and Dragons dice roll of destiny. And that there also decides if one player does better than the other. o-o

Only way to actually damage that players luck is if another knight comes in and attacks as well..... but due to luck or just unnatural timing... the one they're attacking kills em all off... it's that or the group of knights actually destroy the one in question.
Look at Ej for instance. I managed to kill him like what... 10... maybe 15 times in one game. Reason? Burgers. The savior of mankind. Ranked up 115 kills in that hour of game time.. so for me.. it wasnt skill... just massive spamming of the F key to eat a sammich when I got a chance to recover.

Now, I look at these... "Masters" of luck and chance. And understand one thing. Their computers are either faster than ours... or Lady Luck is suckin some major ball sacks. Or... somehow... they get their timing just right. And besides... just because theres... "Timing" involved. It might.. like I said.. luck or speedier comps.


This here is a reason why I said bring back the classic Knight controls, to give back that feeling of needing to plan out your moves before attacking.. not swinging aimlessly like a douchebag and jabstabbing while smiling like some crazy autistic idiot who has no feelings and no way of feeling pain. o -o

Every other class is alright with me, since they seem a bit more.. balanced. But I'm not saying to like.. Nurf them down.. I mean to just change how they move and how they're able to hit eachother. I honestly feel that the servers themselves are too slow to actually detect when two knights hit... something in that area. :I
So yea... that's my rant for today.

EDIT: Don't hate the game, guys. Hate the players. In order to defeat the players you must take away the one thing that makes them great. Timing and chance. Without that, we as the lowly players can and will somehow defeat these so called Gods and become ones ourselves. :I

 

i usually join a game as knight and up majority of the time going 3:1. i have a 10 year old computer with windows vista. i am the true master of luck. you just literally need to learn how to hit and time it as knight; it /does/ require a little bit of learning. of course, people who are new to knight are gonna be baddies. nerfing knights isn't going to help balance the game. you have tank knights, archers who can climb errything and turn it to fire, and squishy builders (WHO ARE REALLY THE ONES WHO NEED A DAMN BUFF)

 

Will agree on builders needing buff.... sweet jesus are they weak.. xD
But yes.. that's true. A bit of learning is needed. But what of the newbies. Think of the newbies D;

 

if you slash each other at the same exact time you should actually kill each other or at least cause knock back which seems like a better option to me.

 

Deleted the last few posts due to being spam, also warned people who were taking part in it. Please take your personal fights to PM instead of carrying them out here. Thanks.

 

That's all I'm getting at. Regardless of the history of KAG, there must be a way to shake up combat just a bit.

 

I agree, most knight v knight fights are just retarted dances that end in 1 guy double slashing, heres some balance ideas

• Remove the double slash
• Second slash only does 1 heart
• all slashes only do 1.5 hearts
• all damage taken from a jab/bomb/arrow/not a slash is doubled if you are charging
• increase charge time
• make knights faster/charging knights slower

 

The problem I see with the whole stab that cancels the charge is that it would make charged slashes useless, at least in theory, and allow me to explain why. Let's describe a typical 1v1 knight encounter.

Knight #1 charges a slash and moves to hit Knight #2. Knight #2 cancels the slash with a well placed stab, then stabs again, hoping for another hit but, Knight #1 realizes this automatically since trying to do a charge slash this close would be stupid so he shield. The shield stuns Knight #2 and Knight #1 stabs him back.

Now... at this point in the battle both knights are right in front of each other and the only way I see either of them winning is by going for careful stabs and shielding, because if they try to charge slash they get stabbed quickly and it gets cancelled, if they move away to perform a charged slash the other knight can simply stab them once more and cancel the charge. See where I'm getting with this?

Charged slash would end up completely useless due to the fact that it would be so easy to cancel.

I understand if some people might wish for knight combat to gain a bit more variety so we're not stuck with charge slashing every time but I believe that allowing knight stabs to cancel charge slashes would simply dumb down combat to shield and stab techniques.

 

Letting stabs stop charge slashes would not make jabspammers more prevalent at all. If you think it will, that's because you're thinking this:

Slash > Shield > Stab > Slash

Only it's not that simple. More like this:

Slash > Shield... when the slash is in fact a double slash and hits successfully both times.
Shield > Stab... but only offers an advantage if the shielding Knight reacts with a counterattack immediately after stunning his foe.
Stab > Slash... when it hits before the slashing Knight is in his slashing animation. Otherwise the stabbing guy is denied by a slash to the face.

So you see, even if you give jabs the ability to stop slash charges, you can still beat them by timing/placing your slashes well.

So the rock-paper-scissors deal becomes a bit different based on how you approach it, leading to a combat situation like this:

Knight A vs. Knight B
A and B approach each other.
A begins charging with the intent of double-slashing.
B quickly jabs, canceling the charge. (1 damage. A is at 3 hearts.)
A, realizing he's been foiled, shields.
B, being a clever Knight who doesn't jabspam and end up getting stunned by shields, backs off a bit and begins charging a double-slash of his own.
A has two courses of action: Try to advance and quickly stab B, or back away and get out of range of the slash. If he chooses the former, he could potentially inflict damage, but if he doesn't move fast enough, he might get double-slashed and obliterated. If he chooses the latter, he won't deal damage, but he will certainly foil B's attempt to double-slash him... this time. So let's say A chooses the latter and backs off.
B tries to advance and double-slash, but A is too far away, and B ends up releasing the slash without being close enough.
A, sensing an opportunity to catch B off guard, leaps forward and stabs.
B, who was annoyed at missing his double-slash, had the intent of charging another slash, and thus gets hit by the jab. (1 damage. B is at 3 hearts.)
A continues jabspamming, hitting a second time, (1 damage. B is at 2 hearts.) but then B shields and stuns him.
B stabs once (1 damage. A is at 2 hearts.), then follows up into a slash-charge.
A, panicking after being stunned, continues trying to jabspam.
B, using a single-slash, pulls the attack off quick enough to hit A and finish him off. (2 damage. A is dead. B lives on with 2 hearts.)

That was such an epic fight

Ahem. By encouraging Knights to utilize the jab strategically, multiple problems would be solved; the double-slash would no longer be king, being beatable by a jab, and single-slashes would actually have a point - they're quick enough to pull off that they can overpower jabs without having to go on the defensive.

tl;dr: Letting jabs cancel charge attacks is a good idea.

 

people are just trying to make knight combat wayyy too complex for how simple it is to fight at the moment. this went from "nerf knights that kill archer 1 hit" to "knights change fighting completely between knights"

 

Yes they would still be devastating but ONLY if they can pull it off. In the end even that small acceleration won't be useful if the stab can completely cancel a charged slash and the reason I say this is because I've been able to kill wounded knights (they had one heart left) mid charge slash with a well timed stab.

Because in the end, timing is everything, whether it's charge slashes or stabs that stun slashing knights, people will use the most potent attack that wins against most and at the moment that would be charge slashes and with the above suggestion it would turn in to stabs simply because charge slashes would be too risky to perform.

Actually, you're incorrect in your assumption as to my view of the whole picture. If I'd have to give an example I guess it would look as such:

Shield > Stab > Slash > Shield

Why? Simple. Timing. In the end, in KAG, timing is everything and once a player realizes that a simple yet quick stab can cancel a powerful slash they will learn to look out for the slash charge animations and time their stabs accordingly which will end up in a similar situation as we are now with timed charged slashing. There would be no point to even shield a slash when a well timed stab would cancel the thing maybe even allowing the knight to get in another stab (depending on the stun) at which, charge slashing would become completely useless and shielding would be only useful against stabs.

Also, I'm sorry to say this but you're example with the two knights? Both Knight A & B proved incompetent. The moment Knight B tried to double slash without considering the distance accordingly and even bothering to perform a double slash (when those can be easily countered with a stab stun and take a long time to charge) was a mistake. Knight A actually being hit by a stab and THEN by slash charge at close range seems impossible (unless he was a newbie but a good knight would of retaliated) since by the time you charge a slash you can get stabbed at least once maybe even twice if you're lucky and with a stab stun that would of cancelled the slash completely.

The description was nice but what you did was describe two newbies that had virtually no idea what they were doing and some of those actions didn't make sense. When I gave the example I considered carefully what would be the most optimum and most logical approach because in the end, the difference between a newbie and a pro is knowing what works and what doesn't and KAG isn't rocket science. Once a player realizes what works he'll stick to that and perfect it, whether well timed double slashes, repeated slashes with bunny hops or the tried and true slash + stab. This is why you see people open up with a charged slash or a double slash and not a stab, because it's the most effective attack but once you find a way to completely cancel that (aka stab stun) people will stop using it since it's too risky or only use it if it's against a newbie that can't time his stabs right, even so I'd consider landing a stab pretty easy seeing it's range and how quick it is. Not to mention that people will learn to counter it to the point that everyone will know how to cancel a slash charging knight.

Perhaps one important detail that I didn't mention in my earlier example was that once the knights end up face to face they either shield + stab since slashes are too risky this close or jump away and the whole battle resets itself to who manages to time it right and land the first hit. Which would undoubtedly lean towards the stabbing knight and not the slashing one because in the end:

Stab > Slash

Of course slash could win against stab if the stabbing knight is truly incompetent and slow but if we're dealing with two pro knights that are dueling it? More than probably the stabbing knight, even if they both get their timing and hit each other at the same time; stab > slash.

 

That diagram is exactly the same as mine. I just put the Slash first and last, meaning it loops back around. I think you completely misunderstood it. X3

Also,

I failed to mention in my description that the way I imagine it, Knight B stabbed A while he was stunned from the shield, then backed off while charging the single slash, thus avoiding A's frenzied stabs.

 

Subtle difference regarding the diagram, there's a reason it's:

Shield > Stab > Slash > Shield
and not
Slash > Shield > Stab > Slash

I placed Shield first and not Slash because Shield would be the ultimate defense against the most powerful attack; the all mighty Stab that stuns charge slashes thus Slash would be dropped as the third (and weakest) and the reason I place Shield again as the fourth is because it is weak against Slash, that is true, but using Stab would be MUCH better to use against Slash than say using Shield. Thus Shield would be useless against Slash (since it stuns you and puts you on the defensive, allowing your foe to prepare their next attack) and only someone who planned poorly or got taken by surprise would use Shield against Slash instead of using a well timed Stab. Understand?

By putting Slash first (instead of shield) it looked as if Slash was still the most powerful, when in truth, I didn't consider it as such but you seemed to consider it still powerful as you even described one of your knights attempting to perform a double slash.

Regarding the Knight A & B encounter. From what I recall the stun from hitting a shield with a stab isn't very long, at best you have enough time for one stab and since Knight B already stabbed Knight A, by the time Knight B started jumping away Knight A could of backed away (resetting the encounter and again the one with the best timing getting the first hit while leaning towards the stabbing knight more) or ran towards him and stabbed him while Knight B was trying to charge slash.

I believe you might have made that knight duel a bit too complicated, to the point that you've stopped taking in to account the duration of stuns as well as what can and cannot be done in a short interval of time and of course forgetting to add certain detail such as the above.

 

And I believe you're getting too deep into this and forgetting the point...

Knight A and Knight B were just tools to express how jab-charge-stop could be implemented in an actual battle. Of course descriptive writing is a poor medium to communicate ideas about game with any sort of physics engine; I'm trying to describe interactions that I can't actually test, and can only gauge the consequences of from how much I've played the game (and I prefer Archer over Knight, if that tells you anything).

The point is, right now, jabs serve very little purpose other than to be an addendum to a slash and do a little extra damage, and the entirety of Knight combat currently revolves around hitting first with a slash (and having better ping). If you even try to use a jab against someone who is using the strategy that the vast majority of players use, (which is of course, slash slash slash) you're going to get decimated. The original idea of Knight combat was in fact a rock-paper-scissors scenario, and right now, that scenario is broken because the jab doesn't actually win against anything.

Thus, Auburn recommended it be given a place in the triangle. I agree with him, and so I am defending the point.

 

I'm getting too deep in to this? Yes, you are correct I am carefully analyzing what is and isn't possible based on what we already know of the knight's limitations and capabilities. Thus, by analyzing those as best as I can and going as ~deep~ as I can I have explained in great detail why this stab stun would be a bad idea. Because in the end, such things cannot be speculated, you must use facts and construct a logically sound theory in order to get an accurate result of the outcome and decide if it is or isn't a good idea.

The point of all this is if it works or not and I have, through careful explanation, showed my case as to why I think that it wouldn't work, without speculating needlessly with an over complex knight duel (as you have) that, in the end, served no useful purpose regarding the outcome of such a battle due to the many flaws it contained. I think I've presented my point more times then you have to be quite honest, which makes your words a bit ironic to say the least.

Your so-called rock-paper-scissors system is very flawed simply because it doesn't work in Knight combat as you think it does and I've already pointed out as to why but allow me to explain once more. A typical rock-paper-scissors would be like so:

rock > scissors
scissors > paper
paper > rock

All three have their uses, all three have a defined role that aids in victory and neither overlaps the other. Now this is what it would look like if the stab stun is added:

stab > slash
shield > stab
stab > slash

See the problem? Let me point it out to you... "Slash > Shield". "Slash > Shield" becomes useless once people realize that Slash can be cancelled with a timed Stab, thus making the Shielding of Slash an inferior tactic (since it puts you on the defensive and stuns you briefly) to simply canceling it with a Stab (cancel enemy's attack and allows you to press the attack). In other words, Stab overlaps Shield when it comes to dealing with Slash, as such Slash ends up the weakest since Shield is taken out of the equation. Understand?

Therefore Shielding a Slash (aka Slash > Shield) would be inferior and would only be used by newbies but once they figure out the advantage of Stabbing while the enemy charges a Slash they will cease to use such an inferior tactic and thus breaking the balance (which was the only thing that made it look like a "rock-paper-scissors" system), the slash would have no define role anymore as it could be easily countered due to it's long charge time, need for distance (in order to use safely) and inferiority to simple stabs. It's the same as to why you don't (at present) try to Stab a person that's charge Slashing, it's an inferior tactic, it's that simple.

That right there is the flaw in your logic, you kept the Shield against the Slash when a Stab would be far superior in countering it and removing the need for a Shield except for when having to block a Stab.

Stab would become the most useful attack, and despite the potential of Slash it will remain mostly useless once everyone realizes that all you have to do is time a simple Stab and cancel the whole thing. And this is why I consider this system flawed, it looks good at first but you end up back where you started the only differences being that instead of players going Slash, Slash, Slash every time, they'll have to go for a more careful shield and stab while slash would remain mostly forgotten or used in very specific scenarios where it would be difficult for the enemy to perform a stab and interrupt your slash.

The only way I can see this work would be in a group fight where one player Shields and his partner prepares a Slash so when the enemy tries to stab they hit the shield and the Slasher would dash forward from behind his mate and slash the Stabber. Or in a 1v1 duel where the Slash Knight jumps from higher ground and performs a Slash while landing on his foe, even then I am unsure if it's possible or not to get interrupted by a stab mid-air.

Even so, such changes would screw up 1v1 combat, make it needlessly complex and based on a flawed system, would require a lot of balance changes and for what? Replacing Slash with Stab as the most useful attack? Can't really see that as a wise choice.

Also, answer me this please; what's the point of suggesting an alternative to combat if it's flawed and doesn't work right? Furthermore, stabs have their uses but only in certain situations when speed is required over damage, such as finishing a wounded player, killing a charge slashing wounded knight (1 heart left) or stabbing to death that pesky archer before he grapples away and yes, sometimes stabbing them to death is a better option than slashing them simply because by the time you charge a slash you could just as well stab twice and it doesn't take as much time as a charge does.

 

It's hilarious how much our opinions differ and how pointless it is for us to even argue on.

I'll be respectfully ducking out of this thread, because I really don't see any purpose in continuing to debate the point with you any longer, considering neither of us is likely to be swayed at all in the other direction.

But I will say this - neither of us know what will work. How CAN we argue that one is better than the other when we can't actually implement and test it ourselves? Leave it to the devs. If they read the forums and see this long, drawn-out argument we've been having, they'll be the ones deciding what to do.

'Til then, cheerio.