TTH Builder Resources

As it currently stands the big drawback of TTH (at least in my view) is that builders have absolutely no fun. Knights and archers get free usables that turn the battlefield into a living hell for any ballsey builder trying to rush. Furthermore, the lack of shops negates a big part of aggressive builder strategies (you can't make a knight shop for keg rain after scaling their tower). But the single biggest problem is that they don't have any materials to work with.
The resupplies at spawn can only really sustain one builder at a time, and if they're minecrafting or making traps then well you're out of luck. And that's not mentioning that once build time is over THE RESUPPLY CRATES ONLY CONTAIN WOOD. Besides, during build time there should be 10 builders running around, way too many for one measly crate every century to appease. In the end once build time is over all the mats that were sourced during build time have been spent on the defenses around the one hall near spawn and after that builders are left on their own while all their knights and archers get explosives for daysssss. Anything you build will probably get blown up in 6 seconds flat. Sure you can make a tree farm for wood but you need a bench first and I don't remember the last time I saw one of those. And even if you do make your base out of wood the enemy could very well have UNLIMITED fire arrows. In the end builders rely on stone. Which in TTH is a non-renewable resource.
Builders are short supplied compared to CTF and the enemy has significantly more destructive capabilities compared to CTF.

Proposed Solutions:
1. Builders get resupplies like in CTF.
Helps alleviate the problem of non-renewable stone and just generally helps in increasing the amount of available materials. Means you can switch to builder in a pinch and actually have materials readily available, instead of the 30 wood you seem to inconsistently get.

2. New shop/factory: BUILDER SUPPLIES
Basically works just like any other shop. Generates stacks of wood/stone over time. Wood and stone could be generated at different rates (I'm not going to suggest actual numbers because I have no idea what would be balanced). Would give builders actual readily available supplies while still fitting with the core concept of TTH.

 

In a way, I think, it's actually CTF which is a bit flawed. Playing builder in CTF mode, you won't have a big need to harvest materials other than in the very beginning before the match starts, or if you just really need to have stone (which is often of severely limited supply). With a bit of careful management, the resupplies can keep up with much of the work needed. On the plus side, it makes CTF a little bit more action-oriented, since you don't have to spend as much time harvesting materials. It also slows down the terrain degradation a little bit. Those things might just be a reason why CTF is more popular. The ability to build structures strategically across the map might be another.

TTH has a few major differences compared to CTF; building limited to proximity to a hall, automated production and a tech tree. The reason for these differences, I think, was to try to create more variety. Technically, these aspects could be matched in different ways, making up more similar game modes. The current "mix" might not be ideal, but I don't know what is. Is a TTH version without automation a better one? Or CTF with automation? As a digression, the sandbox mode contains the building options from CTF, which doesn't make a lot of sense in a mode without enemies.

The KAG dev team seems to have had one mode from the beginning, and felt they had to create at least one alternative. Apart from TDM and such, these two modes are pretty much all there is to "popular" KAG multiplayer. They've been made "interestingly" different, but ultimately perhaps not as well thought-out as they could be. Certainly, they're not equally popular.

I don't know what's the appeal with KAG for other people, but what got me hooked was the "creative" part, in other words the builder class. Without it, KAG just wouldn't be KAG. It would be just another 2d platformer. Trench Run comes to mind, and we all know how well that went (it's not exactly the same, but still). That's why I rarely play TDM, and why I prefer CTF over TTH, since TTH offers less freedom. On the other hand, if KAG didn't have the multiplayer team-based play, it would just be another minecraft/terraria game, minus AI enemies. That would hardly even qualify as a "game". It's a shame the zombie mode got cut, but anyway. Perhaps, just perhaps, these things are along what other people feel too.

Some of the later efforts by the dev team, while interesting, went in a different direction that what seems popular. People just want to play CTF, it would seem. The question they should ask is why.

In regards to the suggestions mentioned above, there was a custom mode at some point which had material-producing buildings. I think it was a Zombie variant. You could build unlimited amounts of wood factories, but only a few stone ones, and very few gold ones. Personally, I think this option would totally nullify the resource harvesting part of the game. In that particular zombie mode, the terrain degradation was so severe that to keep the game going for a certain time made it sort of necessary. Other variants had a trader which gave you the same near-endless supply if you only gathered coins.

 

One idea per thread. Feel free to make seperate threads for each idea

Edit: Had enough time to update thread in accordance to rules, but chose not to. Locked