Why are people so dumb?

Meh, rhetorical question, they're dumb because they're uneducated or just feel like wasting others time.

That said, I wanted to share something that I feel has been lost from pub games now that the game has more players..

When it was first released to steam it wasn't that bad because people were sceptical of whether or not they wanted to play it (mostly because people can't make up their damn minds). When I first saw this game from Cortex Command's website, I bought it pretty much instantly - so I think this is when it first transitioned to steam more or less. I didn't give it a thought, it had building physics where you had to manage at least 1 block of support or risk collpase, epic siege vehicles, and fun mechanics - with smart people trying to kill eachother in an epic game of medieval warfare.

One of the greatest things was when someone bought a siege vehicle. Back then, the wheels couldn't lock so everyone had to be extremely cautious about how they were moving everything around. This ALSO meant, that siege vehicles were sometimes rolled into battle, whether or not on accident it besides the point - it was pretty epic.

The DAY OF the patch where vehicles could have their wheels locked - I'll never forget it. A fellow builder and I were seeing completely eye-to-eye this whole match. He bought a siege vehicle and I had been defending a very specific distance from the enemy's castle with water in front of me, so that we could buy endless catapults and roll them up and smash their flag room down whenever we wanted. I was SO excited when I saw him bring out the catapult and start loading it. About 30 seconds before all this, some noob joins and walks up to our cata and I was just thinking - and I bet my teamamte was too - "Don't immobilize the cata.. Don't immobilize the cata.. Don't immobilize the cata.. Don't immobilize the cata.. Don't immobilize the cata.." and I actually went and started to type it out so this guy wouldn't immobilize it, and then poof the wheel popped off and it was stuck......... 1 block away from being useful. I kid you not. It was about that moment that I had a small aneurysm and realized, there's just no way to implement fixes for stupidity. The entire reason that was implemented was because these same idiots would drive the catas off of good positions just to troll the game, and now I knew I'd never see another pub match where siege vehicles actually move into position instead of just get set up at their intended place and then have the wheel pop off cause people can't control their actions.

Just wanted to get this out there. I'll never forget that day... Great things have come from it because every time I go to play MP games, I have a flashback to the nightmare that is stupid teammates (specifically this where a fix was even implented to prevent idiocy and a noob still managed to break the winning play), and I close it and go read or study instead. I'm not even sure if the guy was trolling or just genuinely stupid, but honestly the teammate that was helping me was nice enough to just politely type out "we didn't want it immobilized" instead of "this f**king noob..." like I would've. I wish I was recording.... I would've edited the video as follows;

Entire half hour of pushing at their front wall and breaking it so we could jump over and harass their spawn while building a small bridge out of stone with some water in front to suppress them at the base of their tower and eventually drive a catapult into range of their flag room. *Focuses in on noob joining server text* about a minute before the next events* Teammate brings cata up to our bridge and goes back to get boulders and stone to load it *draws a trajectory of where the cata is able to fire and destroy, and and arrow showing that it's going to move forward by 2 blocks before we do that, so it's out of harms way for a bit*. *Noob approaches and sits beside our cata for ~4 seconds, my teammate holding stone, a chat bubble appears over both of our heads and then...* *the wheels of the cata popoff*. *A facepalm emote above both the builder teammate and me*. Followed by a half hour of us somehow losing, mostly to bomb spam - and someone's undefended double bomb jump into our shops which we never thought anyone would even see because the round SHOULD HAVE BEEN OVER. And then shops get nuked, enemy steals flag. Defeat. *Goes quickly back to that moment of the noob popping the wheels off a cata he didn't purchase with a trollface.jpg over his face*.

Anyways, like I said, really wanted to share this... and I hope other people miss the chaos of having vehicles all over the place that weren't trolled. It used to be actually quite epic when both teams had competent players that didn't have to rely on macros and crap, and yet still smart enough to not touch other people's stuff without permission, or if they did they would pilot it or use it wisely.

 

I have a solution to this problem. I think that once you select the immobilize option, it does a loading animation similar to opening a siege crate. It would give you time to cancel if you changed your mind/ a teammate was trying to immobilize it for no reason.

 

That's actually pretty good... idk how often changes are implemented though. Also this then provides trolls with a path to the original problem of being able to drive them again. *shrug*

 

It isn't stupidity it is not paying attention when you are playing casually on a pub server ive seen some pretty good players run straight into a mine because they fazed out(and I have aswell)

 

The ability of pub players to not give a shit is stupendous. If you have a team of builders and a hole in your flag base, you can bet your ass that the only way it's getting fixed is if you switch to builder and do it. Except in my case, the moment I switch to something that isn't knight, wherever I intend to go as a builder immediately becomes overrun with enemies until I go knight again.

 

I know this feeling all too well. Glitches and lag weren't the main reason I stopped playing the game, it was my incompetent fucking teammates.

 

This is a mistake, however this guy stopped and could have said hi or something, or even have gone an attack class (like the fact that he was alive where he stood was thanks to my teammate and I) because he was just a builder noob standing there. In fact, I was HOPING and praying that a bomb or boulder would just squish him because I knew in the back of my mind this mofo was going to pop the wheels of the damn thing and there was NOTHING I could do to stop it - and I could see it in my teammates actions too, we were putting a lot of effort the entire match to get to that point and ready to knock down the wall in an epic win which would've taken the amount of time we had while this guy was able to survive standing there and have a small conversation explaining to him what he had just done. My teamamte just stopped in place when this guy who we both saw just join... walks up to our cata... and I know for a fact we were both hoping the next event didn't happen. And then, wheels pop - we had a friggen catapult set up, just 1 block out of range from the enemy flag room.. with the stone (and wood if we needed it) there to build the bridge even deeper into their territory (that I'm pretty sure they just stole and used to rebuild their wall) and knock down pretty much their entire base. Trust me, the guy I was playing with was on par with me the whole game, and it was actually the most exciting game I had played, which is why it bothered me the most. Because I just felt like 'oh they implemented that feature where people can immobilize that cata once we're deep in their territory', and I thought that people would be smart enough to put siege vehicles in place before immobilizing. I was extremely disappointed to have that pipe dream smack me in the face so quickly after the patch was implemented... I mean not even a week before the new strat was to just sit back with them (granted, a lot of that has to do with the shield glide and stuff that hadn't been fixed yet either - and it's not even really fixed if you know how to raise chickens imo but that's another thing altogether).

All because this guy clicked a button instead of observing the big picture for a minute longer.. Hell, he could have done a million other things there and not have caused as much of a hastle as he did. Seriously, this is why I can't to this day figure out if it was stupidity or trolling... Because I've seen noobs make better decisions than this, and at least noobs back then would say "hi" and TRY to figure out what we were doing, but this one particular guy didn't talk.... And I'll never figure out why. Like I said, that is some seriously pro trolling or just complete lack of knowledge of the game. I mean, even the other mindless drone attackers we had on our team that weren't fully aware of what we were doing also weren't bothering us and allowing us to make progress because we were setting up fortifications for them to progress into the enemy's spawn, or at least their 'courtyard' kind of area.

Honestly, the fix I would suggest is maybe adding new wheels for 50 stone...... At least if you have the stone on-site you'd be able to repair it - or go get the noob to fetch it. Sure, it costs resources, but that 50 stone could save 29 minutes of stalemate. This would also dismiss the advent of trolling a bit because trolls are too lazy to collect resources most of the time.

HOWEVER, I feel like that doesn't even fix it, because some troll mofo would just abuse it by like joining the team of his victim he wants to harass, join their side, and then grab up all of their stone and waste it on wheels.. For whatever damned reason trolls do anything for. I'm still not entirely sure what that is, maybe to read posts like this? Where they annoy people who just want to get the epic win? I mean, yeah that teammate and I could have been more conservative with the resources but honestly I'm 100000000000000000000% convinced we would have ended that game if it weren't for this guy popping our wheels.

The fix I would honest to god recommend, for the sake of both preventing trolling and balance would be:

Spoiler

Allow the player placing the cata to control the wheel situation for 90 seconds until the remaining team members are allowed to use the immobilize function - on top of which, whoever gets the capture is the new player in control of what happens to the wheels. If the player in control immobilizes the wheels, there is 5 seconds where you can't apply new wheels, after which, anyone can place new wheels on the same team as the team # (not player, #) in control of the cata. One the catapult has new wheels, they can't be taken off until 5 seconds after they are placed, however, the player in control of the catapult can take them off instantly, and he is the only one allowed in the driving seat ~5 seconds after new wheels are put on a catapult, after which the remaining team members are allowed to access the driver seat. Add a new option to release control of the catapult, and a new option to take control (which are only available from within the team). If you release control of the catapult, you can't regain control again until 20 seconds pass (so you could potentially always have control of it, as long as no one else takes control). If you get out of range of the catapult, you forfeit your control of it (simply put, the range of the catapult is the control sphere). If you are not out of the control sphere and an enemy takes control of it (which should have a timer in which they are also not able to get into the driver seat until they actually capture it, so none of that insta-hijacking), the person who took it on the enemy team earns a control timer, but if your teammates regain control of it and you still have a timer - it should bring up UI stating that a teammate is in your cata and ask you if you want to give up control. If you do, you give them the control timer, which starts at 90 again. This applies to both teams, so if that enemy who took it originally died, and then his teammate had the ability to drive it, he could give control via that UI for his teammate to have the control, and this cycle can repeat indefinitely. There should then be 2 buttons for toggling: 1a)"Always say no to control options", 1b)"Always say yes to control options" and 2)"Manually choose control". As well as buttons to accept and decline (< & >)? Every time you release control, you get a new timer (under the game timer or.. maybe a bar or something?) If an enemy takes control of your vehicle, it isn't considered as you forfeiting control, and you don't gain a 20 second penalty in which you're not allowed to regain control, though your control timer also doesn't restart.

Things required:
Player ID#: To determine the player in "control"
Siege vehicle ID#: To keep track of which siege engines are in play to apply timers to players based on each vehicle in play.
Team #: To determine what team player ID# is on, and what they are able/not able to do to siege vehicle ID# 's wheels and movement controls.
Timer 1: To determine how long the player id who deployed/hijacked/.isincontrol of the catapult is able to control the wheels and movement of the vehicle when it spawns from a box, or hijacking an enemy's. 90 seconds.
Cost: Wheels = 50~60 stone (so there is debate whether you should move forwards, or load 6 shots)
Timer 2: To determine if a player is able to attach new wheels. This timer is 5 seconds, and the player id in 'control' on the team id controlling the catapult is able to detach the new wheels right away, whereas the remaining team ids (!=control id) on the team id controlling the siege engine ID (treb or cata, mostly) have to wait until those 5 seconds are expired.
Timer 3: If a player is in control of the catapult AND puts new wheels on, a 5 second timer starts where he is the only one allowed in the driving seat of the catapult. Players in the seat are kicked out.
Timer 4: A 20 second timer if you release control through means of a new option while holding e, if you forfeit control through the option to do so, or you leave the control sphere of the catapult.
A buyback option: If you were the last person in control of the catapult and you have 10 coins, you can bypass the 20 seconds and immediately control the siege vehicle. Mostly for emergencies, as this shouldn't reset the control timer.
Option 1: An automatic script which always forfeits control to players who take the seat of a siege engine you had been in control of.
Option 2: An automatic script which never forfeits control to players who take the seat of a siege engine you had been in control of.
Option 3: A script which allows you to choose to forfeit control to players who take the seat of a siege engine you had been in control of, manually through a keypress. (enabled by default, as long as you're not driving the thing or if you don't get out of the seat, these shouldn't be that annoying - deal with it, it's better than trolls).
A range: To determine if you've left the control sphere of the catapult. This WILL give you a 20 second forfeit timer, which can be bypassed with the 'bypass option' (for example, if you die, but haven't given up control that you still have on a timer, although if you're dead and it has wheels you may want to consider it if your team is competent).
HasLeft: A value used to determine if the player has left while in control, whether by disconnect or kick/ban. When this occurs, control is forfeited for 'first come first owns', but within the team who currently controls it (aka if an enemy has it, allow them to continuing using it).

It's not a cure for stupid, I know that's a damn given (it was fine when they didn't need to be immobilized), but it would at least prevent some of the nonsense. Yeah, it's a little too complicated. Not sure where it could be simplified without allowing some sort of abuse.

This is pretty much why I've not been playing recently. When it starts balancing to the point where it's 4v1 scenario and you only have 1 other teammate on offense (god knows where the other ones disappear to) and he NEVER goes with you, but sits back or rushes in on his own like he's going to win that 4v1 (yeah.... right). I honestly just sit back in the tent and watch how long it takes for the game to wrap up. On average it's about 5 minutes after, and it's actually sad to watch because those 4 you fight are not even good, but their collaboration is enough to kill you and your retarded teammates it ends up balancing to your team. Sure, it can be fun, but on the side of that fun it's mind numbingly frustrating when all a teammate has to do is pick/bomb 1~2 blocks to win a game and they just are completely clueless.

Hm, before I'm called a troll myself for doing this, I should iterate that if I don't just sit back and watch them die, they do nothing.... So it's either I let the other team win so a new game can start and those whoa re joining actually get to start from scratch (where most of the time a builder totally botched the game by dropping gold down an abyss or the like). Or I sit there and 1v4 for 60~120 minutes. On top of that I don't play at all anymore, so this isn't even recent at all.

 

People are dumb because they play minecraft and the zombies eat their brains :p

 

I think this just boils down to ignorance and indifference. Think for a moment about the average video game player. While you don't know anything about them specifically, there are things you can assume about them in aggregate. They are firing up a video game to screw around with after school or work, just looking for a distraction from their everyday lives. They fire up a game of KAG, which has pretty engaging mechanics, so they screw around in the game world, with only a cursory level of giving a damn about the outcome of the match or teamwork. They just like interacting with the game and its mechanics. That's probably why noobs always love builder so much; it gives them the maximum level of messing with the game environment.

The things that you're talking about involve meta-game and competitive play. Those notions hardly register, if at all, with a casual player. The casual player just wants a distraction; that's it. They're probably only passingly aware that their aimless actions are affecting their team, often adversely.

So, you pretty much have to play around them. If you're looking for a competitive game, you're only going to get it by playing non-public games.

 

Indeed, but when I first got this game, most of the players were fairly level-headed about their decisions. People would communicate how to do things to noobs, and noobs could easily contribute and keep an eye on teammates to see what they were doing (especially people from alpha who had monumental experience of the game) to see how to build a base at least somewhat standardly (and back then imo it was even more unforgiving because the drills were like, you either stopped them or your base took SERIOUS damage). I wouldn't say this behavior is completely lost, but the amount of sand boxing especially becomes infuriating sometimes. Having to always put yourself in a 1v2 because one guy on your team is mining (inefficiently, usually, ~_~) and sometimes not even building shops somehow?!?!?!?! Like really? What do you even say to these people? And you can't kick them because they're not technically doing anything wrong...

A better tutorial may help teach some really simple but effective lessons...

Honestly though, back in the day you almost never had to talk other than to say "you can double bomb jump". No one would ask how, they would go into sandbox, practice it, and then come back an hour later and be doing it. I kid you not, this guy I was playing with that I talk about in the original post - we never had to say a word to eachother the whole match, and yet we knew exactly what eachother were doing.

Anyyyyways, to the people answering the question of why they are dumb, it's rhetorical. They simply had no knowledge of what was happening. However, I find this to be a disturbing trend when a game gets popular, where the first people (to own beta and/or before it goes extremely popular) are very clever - on BOTH teams. Then, slowly but surely there are just complete idiots that have no clue that join up almost every game. There was a point in KAG where I actually calculated the chance of getting a griefer on my team was as high as 50% (1/12 players), of course this differs depending on the amount of players, but on average it was about 50%. That means every other game I had someone either blow up all of my shops with a keg, open the flag room wall, build saws with the intention of killing teammates, break everything with the hammer, etc etc etc. It was pretty sad, and it wasn't limited to the base game - even shiprekt started getting people who would fire engines off or just waste all resources on wall pieces and then leave. Eventually these people are banned, but the damage gets done, and the match is never the same. *shrug* I know I could comp or gather, too - but I just don't feel like those are for me. I'm not so committed that I study the timings to perfection (or use a macro like the 1337357 individuals).

The point I was kind of trying to make though, is that a fix was even implemented and it managed to completely screw over a strat that was about to win a game, because of someone's stupidity or trolling. Honestly, both me and the guy I was with were hoping sooo much that this guy would choose not to be a shitter. I don't wish bad things on a lot of people, and truly I wish that kid got educated. But I also, deep down, wish that this guy had some karma-bolt-of-lightning hit him at some point that week for not seeing that other people in the server put a lot of effort into getting that point, and he ruined it. I don't care if it was even an accident, he shouldn't have touched our stuff without permission. Hell, I would've let the bastard fire the cata if he was so inclined.

 

@Monsteri gather is amazing compared to pub kag. Have you tried it out yet? Usually everyone gets in the Aussie mumble for it too :3

 

Tickets are trash. I would definitely play Gather more often if it didn't have tickets.

 

;-;

 

bb <3

 

I find it healthier for my sanity to just shake my head and laugh when I see bone-headed actions by other players.

As a game goes from pre-release to release, the core player base changes from die-hard gamers to mostly casuals. The die-hards didn't necessarily leave, but were just diluted into the huge tide of new casuals upon release.

I don't think its feasible to try to change that dynamic, as its a matter of statistics. There will always be more casuals than hardcores in a release title, until the community is old and dying, with only the hardcores remaining.

 

I mean I've seen some pretty dumb stuff... Stuff that doesn't even requir playing kag or even games to understand that it's wrong :/ exhibit A would be laying dirt spikes everywhere... Other things like making towers with no entrance and making literally everything out of wood are also pretty obvious, yet I see it all the time :/

 

I am sorry @Corpsey, for immobilizing the cata. I remember it too. It was that incident which made me start playing KAG. The chaos, the cata-strophe.

 

tl;dr