Why has building become so lazy in beta?

In Beta now, anyone call kill anything.

Classic was more a builders rush/tunneling game if you wanted to bring something down.

 

So, what you do as a builder should now be made indistructible and other players shouldn't bug builders? It wasn't like that before and it won't ever be, what if special weapons were made less accessible as you say, it would just become more boring and people would start complaining for the exact opposite problem. No, it's in no way what you say. A skilled builder can still overtake and help to collapse or even just collapse a tower or a base.
It just isn't as dumb as before: people are going to try and stop you.

 

If you played classic you would have obviously realized that in order to win a game you almost always needed a good builder up front. Now I could literally go knight and win using bombs/kegs or archers with fire/bomb arrows. Not saying it's an easy task but the fact that you can do that alone defeats the purpose of a game designed for teamwork. Classic consisted of constant pushing and towers being made to hold the frontline. A lot of times a builder could entomb himself to collapse buildings and that was much more fun and intense imo. Geti said himself that he would increase the prices if he could but he knows how bad it'd be taken by the community. It depends on the type of game we want: One with solid structures being made on the frontlines or two main bases and an endless no man's land in the middle.

 

I have played classic, and my point is that you still need builders, pushing at front, rushing or slowly conquering battleground. When this doesn't happen, on both sides, stalemates happen. Now yes, an archer or a knight can possibly blow up a wall or an entire base, but that depends on lots of things, involving skills of the players and general defense of the other team.
Teamwork is still needed and going solo is still not an option if you're not supported by others.

 

You still see a few frontline towers in official, but they are very flimsy and often get destroyed over a short amount of time. In classic there were many towers that lasted a long time on the frontlines until a builder could entomb himself and collapse it or conquer it. Every time we conquered a tower I felt very accomplished. It took multiple people and we needed to all have a similar idea of what we were doing. I don't think that playing builder is nearly as fun in official because of how helpless they are in a lot of situations. Building structures will help your team for a short period of time while I feel that classic builders had a lot more time to make such solid structures. You can watch sangs montage and watch as he tears through people's towers with a few bombs and a keg. Why would builders have any motivation to build something that won't last. Nowadays all you need is to either tunnel to the enemy base, have a skilled lone wolf player, or siege shop to win games. Before you'd have multiple people pushing together and protecting builders to get the job done. When you look at competitive today, there are very few builders that exist at a competitive level. Most players would rather play archer or knight. I'm lucky I snatched @Darknighte9 when I did because it seems that there's only 1 good builder on avg per clan. I don't know how many times Zen has needed a builder because of the lack of them. It's literally the only class that hasn't been touched since beta. I really think it needs to be updated to meet the needs of the meta

 

We should be good for a while now; we're getting Skinney around the end of this month. You're completely right though. Good builders are few and far between.

 

All the things you mention as good things like entombing, many other players dislike. Sangfroid's video was made when knights had a much stronger advantage in games. Classic is a much slower game and the only reason most matches ever ended was due to tickets or tunnelling builders. A good knight/archer should be able to do some damage, but they still don't have as much hold on a match as a builder does. The main problem in "beta" is caused by bad(or lack of variety in) maps more than anything else.

Classic towers aren't more magnificent, they just became impossible to destroy. In "beta" the worst maps create giant stalemates and epically large towers that cause stalemates either ending in a vote or a tunnelling builder. In other words, your average Classic match. You say beta matches are worse, but then give the variety of "win conditions",

• one player dominates through skill
• Tunnelling
• using siege weapons (as a spawn)
• using siege weapons (as a launch pad)
• using siege weapons (as a destructive tool)

In fact, one of these options is rarely the only key to a teams success. Wins in Beta have many forms. They may have strong knights, but your traps and trampoline cannon give you the advantage. They have siege weapons, but your archer infiltrates and blows up the shop as your builders steal the flag.

All I could do as an archer in Classic was sit on a tower and hope to knock an unsuspecting knight into a pit. Now I can actually steal a flag myself or provide better cover.

Don't think I hate Classic or anything, but Beta is so much more fluid and has many more options. It's not like a good builder won't work there just isn't many of them. In Classic that was the only option. In Beta it is one of many.

I see tunnelling builders in almost every match in beta, and while forward builders are often needed, so are more knights or better archers. It's not the game, it's just dumb players. You can't say the game doesn't encourage forward builders, they are amazing in beta. It's just hard to play as one. Why would a new player want to go straight out and build like that? Good builders are there, but I don't think we always notice them. I hope the new singleplayer mode encourages good building techniques good teamwork.

 

You bring up many good points and perhaps my own opinion is due to the fact that I play a lot of pub games where players are new. I think what needs to happen is a builder buff so that they don't feel like their only option is to tunnel. I would like to see more variety in the builder class in general. Sure it can build and destroy blocks but it needs something to feel like a stronger pick. More often than not I will play as a knight because I know that I will be more effective against the opposing team. Builders need something that makes them pack more of a punch. I think more items could really improve the builder population

 

Builders already hold enough powers, a perk would be nice though
One OT thing I'll say is that making drills builder only just made drills obsolete as they're the only class that don't need them. But maybe it's better like this. They should work better though.

 

I can tell you exactly what has changed; there are 4 big issues:

1. archers can now climb almost anything, so walls are not such an obstacle
2. the game is much more fast-paced and frantic; strategic and thought out building is not much of an option; you must hurry up and build a known good defense or die immediately
3. all classes can readily blow up walls all by themselves
4. knights can bomb jump over the moon now; there is no wall high enough to stop the good ones

So, now, the rewarding role of the builder, who defended his team and their territory in classic, is no more. In alpha/classic, when you built a wall, it stayed there. Knocking it down or taking it over was a big deal that everyone had to work together. Building is now a chore that you have to do and keep maintaining throughout the match. It is thankless, joyless, and doesn't even award you any points of any kind.

 

That sums it up pretty well. I really wish I remembered classic. I just know that there sure as hell aren't nearly as many builders.

So now we have to ask ourselves what it is we want from the builder class in kag official?

 

Well, I looked a bit in my old screenshots and here are some buildings that appeared on the classic version of kag for the uncultivated : P
I think you referred to that @kabahaly

Spoiler: Random Towers

Spoiler: CW Towers

Spoiler: Bonus Gather Towers

 

man, using shop layouts as cover was OP. would have arcrave run up and put down a shop for me to shoot from. that's the only creative building i remember.

 

I know this may be a stretch but what if builders got 150 stone during build time and 50 during normal fighting time. It would encourage larger stone bases, but might be enough to counter the destruction of the knights. My only concern would be stone door spam.

 

1. Lack of resources. Most servers in classic allowed for near infinite building materials during the pre-game phase, easy resupply, and mostly bountiful resources across the map.
2. As others have stated, buildings are too easily destroyed. Bombs, mines, kegs, catapults, ballistas, bomb arrows, and fire arrows all make most buildings ticking time-bombs instead of strong fortresses. Castles in the beta more-or-less collapse into a defendable mass of stone and wood. Intricate traps are destroyed and creativity is stifled overall
3. Archer grapple and special arrows. Scaling structures used to require precise arrow ladders and now any archer loaded with bomb & fire arrows can climb buildings, burn/bomb key points, and collapse buildings or quickly steal flags.
4. Building physics are too realistic. Sky-bridges were unrealistic but also god-tier for fun.


Pic is one of many mega-forts I helped make in classic. This base would get rek'd in seconds in beta with all the kegs, bomb & fire arrows, and explosive ballista bolts we deal with.


Same story here. Any archer could scale this, land a few bomb arrows, and the whole thing would collapse. In classic it was nearly impossible for an enemy archer to climb this.


Monolith always related. This one took the combined efforts of a full team spamming unlimited stone during pre-game to make. Shit was hilarious. I've yet to see any castle remotely close to this in beta.

 

I don't think people are giving builders nearly enough credit. Most pub games I see these days are determined more by builders than by archers or knights. Of course you need them to fight, but a lot of the time they're not what ends the game. I can kill their builders and blow up their structures, but eventually I'll die. By the time I come back, their builders will have repaired all the damage I did and then some. If explosives are so powerful and fortifications so useless, why do we have so many hour long stalemates? I've seen plenty of games bogged down in stalemate for half an hour plus only to end in five minutes once a single offensive builder joined in. A lot of it comes down to tunneling, but even without they can still decide the match.

How much fun you have playing builder is really a personal opinion, so it's not like I can argue that. I enjoy myself on the rare occasion I can afford to not play knight, and even working by myself I can often put up a tower and keep it up despite the other team's best efforts. I just don't see things how you're describing them.

 

Well building also depends on the team I'm on too. I spend a lot of time playing knight so that my team will have the offensive and once I switch to builder they're usually already dead if I don't have good players on my team. A lot of times I can get more done when I play knight, such as kegging an entire building, blowing up tunnels with mines, and holding off enough of their frontline so that my team can move up. Why choose builder in some circumstances when the knight is obviously the better option.

 

We need something that makes small towers better, but not allow giant walls of stone. Maybe better traps? Something could surely be taken from the new circuits and such that are being worked on. I don't play builder that much out of the build phase because I don't find it that fun. Most of the traps that are worth time and resources are easily avoidable. The only decent one is a saw trap. It would be better if there were more "just as planned" moments for builders.