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[KAG] BUILD 1215 – Rebalance and Fix Central

New build for KAG – potentially a little rough around the edges but what’s there needs to be tested with the public before we can move much further.

Now with extra flammable platforms!

New build is going out at the moment, should be a long build but out in 30 minutes or so from this post. There will be the usual lull as servers patch over between maps and the client builds aren’t done, and again as the steam build propagates out – don’t panic if you see lower than average numbers in the next few hours.

Here’s a summary of the more serious changes, split by section:

Balance Changes:

• Knight Rebalance
  There have been some long-standing complaints about the knight; this should help to address a lot of them and help reign in some of the more obscure parts of current knight play.
  • Shield Glide is no longer infinite
    Your shield glide will gradually lose its effectiveness as you fall through the air – you can put more wind into your sails with multiple bomb jumps, but this alone makes knights a lot more prone to gravity (like every other class). You can also no longer infinitely climb up walls with wall jumping.
  • Jab does minor stun
    Players from classic era will remember “slash cancelling” with jabs – while this is very ping dependent, we’ve decided to try it out again. It lets you get a quick, reactive cancel to someone charging a slash or double slash in front of you with jabs.
  • Slash doesn’t break shield for as long
    Slashes will not break a knight’s shield stance for as long, giving them a chance to attack back with jabs if you’re “slash surfing” them.
  • Circle of Power
    All of this together helps enforce a circle of power in knight combat options: slash > double slash > shield > jab > slash – there’s still the wildcard of shield bashing and bombs in the mix to keep things fresh of course, but this should make knight combat a little less slash-heavy.
• Archer Tweaks
  • Reduced stun range
    The range at which arrows stun players has been reduced a little.
  • Special Arrow spam discouraged
    When firing special arrows with legolas, you will automatically switch to normal arrows for the 2nd and 3rd shots. This is to further encourage actually aiming with special arrows instead of just spamming 3 bomb arrows at a tower with triple shot.
• Drills builder only
  At the request of the community by poll, drills have been made builder only for now. We’ll see how this change affects their use and the builder’s place in the game.
• Map Borders
  The map borders are active on all edges, including the top of the map – this prevents simply “jumping over” tall structures.
• Weaker Wall-run
  Wall running has been reduced from 3 tiles to 2, making smaller structures more significant.

Fixes and Smaller Changes:

• Platform Fixes
  Lots of issues with platforms have been cleaned up, most notably grappling them, wallrunning on them, and fire spreading through them. They also got a small sprite facelift.
• Mine Fixes and balances
  Mines explode with much smaller radius, collide with platforms, don’t explode with materials on them, and shouldn’t go invisible any more.
• Spawning timer no longer resets on click
  This only really applies to CTF – TTH still has wave respawning and some limitations there, though it should fare a little better than it did.
• Server Fixes
  A memory leak in the server was identified (finally) and fixed.
• Storage Changes
  The storage is a little more attractive, has damage frames and responds to lantern containment – thanks to community member Skinney for these changes.
• Saw changes
  The saw spews out a slightly more reasonable amount of wood.
• Spectator Fixes
  Several fixes to the spectator mode have been made, most notably including it getting “stuck”.
  Thanks to community member norill for these fixes.
• Interface Fixes
  Some discrepancies with the TDM and CTF spawn time interfaces have been cleaned up.
• Stun Fixes
  Stun is now respected for picking up/throwing items, and for using drills.
• Builder Hitting Fixes
  Builders should have a slightly easier time hitting what they want to hit – theres still a few finicky edge cases but overall it should behave more sensibly, especially when trying to mine tiles near objects.
• Tips on Death
  Some helpful, community sourced tips are displayed while you’re waiting to respawn – you can turn these off (along with other ingame help) with f1.
• Fixed Builder digging in no-build zone.
  No more undermined tents or halls.
• Fixed CTF HUD not showing for 1 flag maps.
  Speaks for itself, annoying little bug.
• Emoticon bindings in EntitiesCommonEmotesEmoteBindings.cfg.
  If you need faster access to some of the emoticons you can now rebind them clientside, though it is a little fiddly.
• “No Chat Bubble” option and some options fixes
  For those sick of seeing chat hovering over someone obscuring the action, you can now turn these off in the options menu.
  Some other options that were having issues being saved should be fixed now too; let us know if any options still fail to be saved after quitting the game normally.
• Fixed lots of Larger Resolution Issues
  Larger resolutions now have fixed size cursors and can aim accurately, and work for vertical aspect ratios too if you’re that way inclined.
• Lots of other fixes and tweaks – changelog too big for tumblr! I’ll put together a changelog to include in the forum post, though it may take a little more time.

General Concerns:

• Archer may be too strong
  We’re well aware of the potential for balance changes like this to swing power too far “the other way”. We’ll be watching very closely in the coming week and adjusting things as need be in a follow-up build.
• A focus has been put on Gravity
  A lot of the changes here have put a focus back onto gravity – we want structures to have more of a purpose, people to need builders a little more, and vertical play to be a little more dicey; we also want to see less of people building giant turtle towers behind their base and flying all the way across the map :^) Keep this intent in mind when you’re cursing at not being able to jump up “measly” 8 high tile walls – players are going to have to adjust to more “grounded” play, and that may take some time (at least a few games).

Looking forward to seeing you guys in game to put these changes through their paces! I’ll be around tomorrow to make hotfixes if necessary but hopefully they can wait until next week – after the game re-stabilises.

Have Fun!

Geti/Max