Revitalizing Base/Vanilla 2.0

I was on KAG some time ago trying to Hijack Chrispin's Wizard Wars and have him call it Mages Gone Wild and to do it my way (the right way) but he demurred because he's a fuzzy little kitten and like all fuzzy little kittens he was blind, now I've come back to find KAG gasping for life, if basic can't keep enough players then the Mod's around it will sink too so I suggest we figure out how to keep the Ship of KAG afloat for another year or two.
A Pikeman class.
A Monk class.
A King class. He can pick up or returns his team's flag if he steps on it but can't carry the enemy flag...he might be able to grab it from the pole and hold on to it to keep it out of danger but his team cannot score in the meantime, unless they have another flag to do it at... he would be fat and oddly floaty in movement perhaps.
A fixed or single spawning Queen, Princess, Lady NPC's which can be killed or captured for some reward or simply held for effect.
Other NPC's like blacksmiths or merchants or something might drop or give gold or something.
Crossbowmen class is ready made and ought to be available and more distinct from the Archer.
Skirmisher class could round out ranged classes, he would get a small wooden shield for blocking arrows and some melee damage but be less mobile than the Archer, perhaps the spear could stick onto wooden structures, perhaps if the throw was charged up, maybe that could be that class' thing, these could be stood upon until knocked away or drop after a period of time, maybe.
A Trebuchet. A larger piece of siege equipment which we price effectively while letting players cast rocks or themselves possibly but much farther than other siege; not only that but with that a type of explosive that is guaranteed, not a keg that needs timing, something that is assured to blow something to smithereens after it has launched (Dragon Bomb?), this might involve kegs but not in their normal capacity as they exist now, a missive here would be that Treb's might get spun around if we want to do it that way, unless they get wheels knocked off or emplaced or whatever...though they may not move to begin with.

The prick KAG physics a pike could offer should be explored yesterday...

 

Somebody has been sipping the aoe2 for too long.

I think a lot of people would want more content in KAG, the problem is time and balancing it. The game currently is as balanced as it has ever been. Adding a new class will mean a lot of other things will need to be shifted around.

In the end the dev team isn't very big and don't have a lot of time to spend on developing KAG. This means we will probably never get anything big added to the game anymore. You can try learning modding and make it yourself, then submit it via Github.

I like the idea of a trebuchet as a long range siege weapon and I like the idea of a new shop like for example a market similar to that in aoe2. But adding a new class is a bad idea. Too much balancing for something that really isn't needed. With adding a new class you should ask yourself the question: "What role will this class have in the game?" Currently with our 3 classes we have the knight that is the bread and butter, archers for backup and harassment and builders for territory control.

 

Well look, this game averaged 46 concurrent players last month? So if you guys sold 250,000 and arrive at that number then it's probably because they have found something more entertaining to do, that means they got bored, Pikes and pike physics and the Trebuchet might be loud enough for people to wax nostalgic and pick the game up again, the extra classes add more interactions and improve the social experience and add longevity and ultimately sales to the game.

 

Again, I agree more content would be awesome however it simply isn't possible with the little time the few devs have to spend on KAG. Imo there are more concerning problems like the need of a new proper tutorial.

 

I assume by devs you mean people doing that strictly in an official capacity and not volunteers because I certainly don't know where that line is at or who is on either side of it, what I'd like to see here is a concise set of priorities for this limited community to work on, if that's just a Treb from you guys and someone else looks into Pike physics and does some proof on concept work and uses it in a mod and we see how that goes, that wouldn't be out of line with what I want to do here.

 

I don't want you to get confused, I am getting the vibe that you think I am a developer, I am not, I am behind the same fence as you.

Like I have said, the amount of people able to work on things is small. New classes like spearmen have been discussed 1000 times, the worth of adding it isn't enough compared to the time it takes to create it. Because it isn't only creating the spearmen class but also rebalancing the other classes to work well with it. The entire metagame shifts. It can take months or even years for all of the small flaws to be ironed out.

This isn't a triple A game with a big development team behind it. It is a few people with limited time to spend on the game. I think almost everyone in the community wants to see more content getting added but it won't happen, at least not for a while.

 

Yeah I didn't get back on to try and do a rendition of base, but what I see most of the time is a stack of dead and underpopulated servers, even though this is an allergic response it is a sound place to put effort because of problems with retention, you are almost saying it's not going to die within the next 2 or 3 years and these may be slow development years.

 

I am not quite grasping what you are trying to say with this post, underpopulated servers is a sound place to put effort because of the problems with retention? I don't quite get what you mean with that exactly.

As for me saying the game is not going to die in the next 2-3 years, that depends on how you define die. I think it will definitely have less players but I think a small community will still remain. I don't see myself leaving anytime soon that is for sure. Development has always been slow, again this isn't a triple A game with a big development team.

I might have misinterpreted what you have said but in my defense that is a hard post to understand.

 

My bad, my posting here was an allergic response to the drop in players, what I suggested in the original post here is directed at getting someone to focus on the particular points I brought up, there was meant to be some discussion and out of that there would be 10 or 15 things that would be seen as priorities and get done by those willing to do them, I still want to get that mod made and of course there is little point in trying to do a mod for a game that is dead, which is my concern.

Edit*
I want you to hold me and tell me everything will be alright.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 1, 2018, Original Post Date: Feb 28, 2018 ---

Also:
Treb with giant bombs might have an anti-ratting effect, it is unlikely the enemy team will keep streaming through if that gets built above them and it let's people who don't want to change from playing offensively to simply fight at the Treb.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 3, 2018 ---

There will be generation of a Queen and a Princess and other stuff and they can be picked up but most or all of these are valuable to their side because they generate something or otherwise offer some benefit and will require protection, note that most or all of these NPC's can be captured by the enemy for some, usually similar or identical rewards.
Queen - Heals the King completely when his HP is damaged.
Princess - Kisses the King or his Knights to replenish a large amount of HP.
Lady - Kisses the King or his Knights to replenish some HP.
Monk - Gives hearts or otherwise heals the damaged HP of friendly units.
Apothecary?
Blacksmith?
Merchant?
Peasant?
For our purposes, NPC generation creates utility in what would otherwise be virtual deadspace/an eye sore; players who are not going to play less tactically to achieve that end are obliged to enclose those areas and makes it feel much more like what it is, a base, it adds an extra avenue of play by letting players kidnap the important ones, that is to say, humiliate and dishonor their opponents, in Take the Halls (TTH), there is a tiny bit of this but it doesn't have much luster by comparison, in fact much of the time they just seemed like they were in the way, too much of a common area I suppose.