The Problem

The only thing I could recommend for a building nerf is that you can destroy blocks easier. Other than that, just leave everything as is. If you have a team of knights at the front and are confronted by the other teams massive spike pit or tower, that isn't the fact that "This obstacle is too great for knights. This is a huge problem that I will not stand for", the problem is more on the lack of "Hey, team! We need some teamwork! Get a builder to the front!" or a knight volunteering to run back to tent to become a brolder. Knights shouldn't be able to destroy the whole field and enemy bases single OR team-of-knights-only handedly, that will turn this game into "CALL OF KNIGHTS: KILL ALL TOWERS ONLINE".

And please keep the infinite resources at the start of the match thing, nothing is more fun than building oversized castles or ridiculous other buildings (SKYBRIDGE) and have them collpase or stand strong during the match. If anything, make the limit of holding stuff like 50 stones and 60 wood so you'd have to run back to the tent more often.

 

Yes I mentioned that once in IRC but forgot to make a thread of it. It should definitely be possible and encourages active defense.

 

I am against class limitations, because it would be annoying that if I wanted to go from knight to builder (to throw up a quick wall to stop the enemy from advancing on us or to repair a tower) that I couldn't, and the people who managed to get the builder slots first sucked at it. I'm just saiyan. (I like that, Luigi. :D)

I agree mostly with everyone saying to wait for the introduction of more siege weapons before nerfing ANYTHING. The game is tons of fun right now, but if all these changes suddenly came into play with no way of bringing down buildings (save for a builder, which takes ages) I'm not sure I'd want to play anymore.

Basically, this game has many strengths. It takes medieval style war-based combat, tries to remain true to the time period, but gives it that wacky, fun edge that only video games can do. If this were a war SIMULATION game, I'm not sure it would be so popular. Once you learn how to play, playing as all three classes is challenging and fun. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses; Builder can build great defensive structures that benefit every class, but aren't very good at CQC. Knights are the obvious powerhouse/tank character, they do great in CQC and can protect friendly archers and builders. They, however, aren't very strong against ranged units and aren't terribly mobile. Archers are swift and can attack from pretty far away, can easily camp and take out multiple enemies, but suck when it comes to being offensive players.

So, what happens if you make it take longer for the builder to place blocks? Nobody's going to want to play as a builder anymore because that little bit of video game wizardry makes building shit a ton of fun, and it's a personal challenge to see what kind of efficient structures you can make with the time and resources given. Take away the knight's bombs? Then really all he's good for is spamming his sword jabs, shield bashing, and tunneling under structures because they have no secondary attack anymore. Again, no one will want to play as a knight anymore.

The archer is really the only class that I can truly say needs some work done. On top of a wall/tower/etc, they're invincible, and given enough arrows? Unstoppable. Enemy at the gates? Just plop 3-5 archers in a little trapdoor nest above the front gate, and throw a knight down with the enemy to take away their shield. Instant mass murder. Someone else said it, but as a knight, I should NOT be losing to archers that I'm chasing down. It just doesn't make sense. They should be running from the knights, not vice-versa.

Perhaps a fix that could make everyone happy is this. When wooden structures get introduced, make stone more expensive. Instead of a stone block costing 10 stone, make it 20. Wooden doors cost 30 wood, so make the stone version cost 60. Obviously wooden structures would be more vulnerable to all forms of attack, but as an enemy deterrent it's more cost effective and isn't impossible for knights to get through. It's really no wonder I see new guys making 10 wide stone towers during the building phase, because it's effective at slowing down the enemy. Obviously they can just dig under it, but with archers on top of it, builders dropping lines of stone on them and knights bombing them constantly, it's sometimes difficult to do.

Removing instakill from catapults? If you got hit from bits of stone flying at you at 80 miles per hour from about 75 feet up, it would kill you too right? The only problem with the catapult is that once you get through the stone blocks and start hitting the back wall, it tears through it like butter. In my eyes, back wall is far too weak, and maybe that's why catapults seem so OP. The thing that pisses me off THE MOST about catapults are the launching teammates thing. Often, I'll be on a roll with a catapult, tearing down enemy towers and walls at a good rate. I'll have maybe 1-2 more shots before this massive tower falls, and the catapult can only take like 1 more arrow before it blows up... I have a fully charged shot, and all of a sudden some dumbass jumps into the catapult and I launch him instead. Not only does he fly directly into a wall, killing himself, but the catapult then takes that last arrow and it's destroyed. Enemy builders now have time to fix the tower and we're right back where we started. There needs to be an option on the catapult that, instead of knights being able to just hop in, they stand next to it and the PERSON FIRING can choose whether they want to launch them or not. Main point is that I'm sick of every knight on my teams thinking that the catapult is a public bus, it's not personal transportation and I'm not gonna fire you unless it's a viable option.

Basically, the game is already fun and challenging as is, and nerfing ANYTHING without introducing some things to combat the changes will make it less fun. And if the game isn't fun anymore, your client-base is going to drop off. I don't wanna see KAG ride off into the sunset because nobody wants to play anymore. Bomb-jumping could use SOME tweaking, but really the only people that can use it EFFECTIVELY and EFFICIENTLY are ones who have practiced it and gotten it down to a science, IE. more skilled and invested players. Like BlueLuigi said, if we're going to put in any kind of changes, there needs to be a test build so we can give it an extensive look without being surprised by sudden, game-breaking changes.

EDIT: I like kromag's idea of letting archers and knights fight during the build phase. MUCH better option than them just jumping all over our structures while we're trying to build...

 

One idea I've had for preventing stone block spamming is to make blocks take 10 seconds or so to "set" after they're placed, and until then a single enemy attack (excluding arrows) will be enough to destroy it. This means a builder can't escape a knight by blocking up a hallway since the knight could just stab it down immediately, and it means front line builders have to be a fair bit more careful with where they build; the further up the better but go too far and it'll get rushed down.

Playing front-line builder is by far my favorite thing to do in this game and I think having that tension of hoping your blocks set before the enemy knights make it over to you would be pretty great. Having my constructions get threatened is fun! A build-time nerf just doesn't sit right with me, it would make playing builder feel too sluggish. Having blocks take time to set will keep the same speed we have now but invoke more of a risk/reward dynamic.

Note that none of this really addresses the problem of buildings being overpowered in general, only the whole "builders making an impregnable mid-ground fortress in 30 seconds" thing.

 

The main problem I see is, that most players want to play knight and have fun. And now there is this darned builder that builds a good structure and knights get frustrated! Almost on any server I see almost ONLY knights with some archers and a few builders. Sometimes I see 8-12 knights running up to a wall jumping up and down and hope some magical ladder will appear instead of calling for builder support to help them out.

Those huge structures can as easily be defeated as they are built through teamwork and another builder. It would kill all the fun for me if knights would be the supreme ruler of the battlefield without any restrictions. Knights need to accept that builders can block them from pillaging and that they need help from others to get pass that barrier. Instead of nerfing anything I would rather see new mechanics that reward teamwork more. If we all would play as a team and not as a "one-man-knight-army", we wouldn't have those problems.

If we nerf builders and structures then there will be nerfing complaints about "imba-knights" that overrun the enemy team in 3 minutes and steal their flag and finish the round.

 

Prehaps there could be a battering ram item available from the siege workshop. This would allow a knight to break stone blocks after a while.

 

No shit buildings are overpowered, this is why when we take ourselves way back in castle siege history, often battles like this can take days. Archers, in my opinion they are fine as of now, despite the fact that they have ZERO melee abilities. Though it's applicable that throughout medieval battle strategies that archers are always encouraged to stay behind their fellow knights and rain hell upon their enemies. As for buildings and archers, I believe they go together very much perfectly and in no way a class for the front lines.

Also, archers are invincible in any structure really, that is, until they go head to head with an archer that has HIGHER ground. I found myself being a competent archer having hard times taking out knights on skybridges, and I also find skybridges to be game breaking physics. It's just unreasonable for a structure to stretch out in a long skinny line without falling. Personally, I have to disagree with you with the building limits. After all, it's not on the quantity of the building, it's the strength of the buildings foundations and it's effectiveness of it's architecture and design. Yes builders oversee themselves to create the absolute best, however this gives the team with wiser builders a fair advantage. As you know in many castle sieges, there are the wise and there are broad. You certainly do not get both, and I can say one thing about this game. The classes the people play really do reflect what kind of mind the players have and how they think in terms of strategy.

As for the knights, why remove the bombs? Bombs are the main tie breaker between an archer and a knight. An archer can't block bombs, they only can dodge and run away. Often turns out that the archer gets gibbed, and the knight proceeds on. Also, like many others said, it's a fun aspect for knights and certainly adds a little more twist into giving the knight a more honorable roll in battle.

There is no need to dumb down or drastically change the game any more than what it really is. With the exceptions of sky bridges... and if people really hated archers that much, they can perhaps suck on their on thumbs and play solo sword fight. Actually, they should generally avoid any game with archers in it really.

 

A battering ram item has been mentioned as a planned item. ^^

 

SPOILER ALERT!

That would be pretty cool to have. Just ram thru walls.

 

Nah, I find that to be an extremely bad choice. Seriously, knights shouldn't be able to break stone blocks, no matter their condition, it would give an already over-abilitied class more power. I think they shouldn't be allowed to break anything, as Geti suggested before.

Builders are the castle builders and destroyers, knights kill shit with sharp pieces of metal up close, archers kill shit with sharp pieces of metal from far way. This is the way it should be. Bombs should only kill people and slightly damage stone blocks/back wall/doors.

I'd also love to see builders get bombs instead of knights, I think you'd see a lot less spam of them then. Just as a test, of course.

 

I think knights shoudl only be able to finish the job of the builder, stone-wise: if the stone is cracked and one more hammer whack would finish it, then the knight's slash should be able to destroy it. it's not a stretch to assume that a crumbling, dented, weak stone block can be broken with a sword.

 

The thing is, bases tend to be chock full of those if under attack, I don't the knight should be able to exploit that by themselves. Get a builder to come with you and break it, or go builder yourself

 

Alright, I too have read all the above ideas and still see some blanks that need to be filled:

1. Archers are Not "Invincible" , "Unstoppable", or "Too powerful in towers" archers are there own worst enemy, archers on top of a towers are extremely vulnerable to other archers on the ground.

2. Trapdoor ladders should be nerfed however other designs should not, take for example my favorite tower design:




The ladder should be a viable use of the trapdoors and shouldn't be nerfed.

3. Other types of bombs should be introduced, the standard currently should stay the same as a type of anti-personnel bombs and a new type, as an example, (I forgot who first had this idea but thanks) sticky bombs.

4. Adding any type of block-building delay is a bad idea, those who are supporting it are looking only at 48 player- inexperienced-player-filled servers, when playing on a server with 6 people at 6:30 in the morning and everybody is asleep, if it takes you 5 seconds per block and your the only builder, what are you going to do?

 

There is nothing overpowered about archers. You counter archers with archers. Also bombs are very effective against archers if you know how to throw them. I disagree that stones are overpowered or whatever, esp as we are getting the keg.

I feel that there are many people who currently are silent on the matter because they love they game as is

some more things:

knights should not be able to hurt stone with slashes or whatever, it would be too easy to get through. what would they hit the stone with anyway?

doors up high is not overpowered and should not be changed, the reason they must be like this and not like real castles is mainly from this being a 2-d game. i am sure you can figure out why this is so by yourself.

the problem with this game is you have two castles fighting each other. defense is always the winning strategy so it makes the game quite easy to manipulate. the ways i see that this can be changed is by having perhaps an attacking team and a defending team or something of the sort as another gameplay style. you just cant nerf defending to fix this, it is impossible to do without making castles pointless

 

@Havoc:

1. How can archers counter entrenched archers. Archers out in the open fighting archers in cover is bad for the archers in the open. At the very best you (the attackers) are also in heavy cover. Archers in cover also don't have to die ever as when they get hit they can just pop away from their firing port over to a bed for two seconds and get back to full health.

2. "The ladder should be a viable use of the trapdoors and shouldn't be nerfed." You don't even explain why despite people giving many reasons why team biased ladders are bad.

3. Saying "add x thing" has no place in this conversation and you don't say why these things you say should be added.

4. I am speaking in a large part about clan matches which are generally 6v6 or less. Also I didn't say five seconds I said a second or two. That's like if you responded to the news that archers are getting a 1.5 damage shot with "WHAT ARCHERS ARE GETTING INSTAKILL ARROWS?"

 

I don't think that the Devs will balance the game out for their hardcore fanbase that want perfectly balanced clan matches. Like every developer they are interested in making money and deliver a fun experience for everyone (everyone mean the majority of the players). So I think the game shouldn't be judged as a clan game like counterstrike where balancing is everything but rather as "how much fun is it to play for the majority?".

Edit:
The only solution to this would be a seperately balanced gameclient SPECIALLY made for clan matches while the public uses another one. That way the game stays fun for everyone

 

maybe archers should be able to have instakill arrows against other archers? that would at least make it so you cant run back into the castle to heal, although it could just make archers even more popular. just a random thought

Of course attacking archer vs defending archer will not be fair, but that is just how it works. Again defending is always the most favorable tactic in war. But, talking in small clan battles, there will be problems as pointed out as both teams will be quite professional and will have a much easier time using good tactics (and with defending always being the best way to go, the attacker will almost always lose if they don't have a significantly larger amount of people or just better siege equipment! This is assuming equal skill on both sides) . I agree and like what Mugumaster has said on this, perhaps there should be a separate gameclient/balancing for competitive gameplay.

sorry for my incoherence, i'm quite stupid :D

 

This might be a little off-topic, but considering all these posts reminded me of how annoying this is ... probably only applies to people who zoom way out or use small HUD.
As a builder placing materials, when you switch materials- whatever you moused over as you close the pop-up is selected. If you're in a hurry, and if you're a nanosecond off in your timing, or your aim, you can place the wrong block. What if we had to left-click the item to select it instead? And maybe it's highlighted if its selected?