Kiting stuff, keep it here!

[The Cid]

first defence was the perfect map...until it was griefed.

we can see here that kitting is NOT the demon worship that people are making it out to be, but, rather, is just another play-style that people enjoy. click has touched on this earlier and i am inclined to agree that having diversity in the mod is extremely important in holding peoples interest and thus increasing the mod's playability.

some will argue that having maps such as first defence ruined other maps as they always get passed up or never played. to you mappers I say, take it upon yourselves to create even better and more enjoyable maps to rival rather than ruining the work of others so as to FORCE people to play your maps. this is not good sport... there are some instances where maps do get boring but ruining the old maps solves nothing.

kitting is the reason some people play this mod, to force them to play your way is not what gaming is about. I say let people choose how they wan't to play and do your best to accommodate all interests rather than sitting maliciously biased in favour of one play style that is not the enjoyment of all.

Above comments are spot on imo..

[Legend]

Heh , you silly. First defence was only "good" for kiting because of all the corners and stairs where the AI got stuck on. Also, a moving shield wall (which is absolutely fun to play and pretty efficient if done right) doesn`t need any specifically map or narrow points.
Now , i kited myself a very long time and ofc. it is fun, rewarding and needs some set of skill, still it does not encourage team-play and was spot on throughout the entire existence of ni. (Just ask Yuri how often i moaned to him when he did another nerf ^^ ).
Finally , it always was the decision of the developers to get rid of kiting since the very beginning and it is after all their game.

[[ASSASSINE]]

Poll has been added,in order to see ppl opinions about Kiting and the recent map changes.

Edit: after recieving pm's for this, i have added an option of nerfing the kiting. This means, keep the maps good, but buff the danger of the bots.

[oposum]

All this talk about kiting being a really skillful activity is amusing.

Kiting should be kept in, just increase ammo weight around 10 times so people can either kite extremely slowly or kite with only 1 stack of ammo, which would make kiting unprofitable due to frequent shrine visits (ofcourse, that would mean nerfing archers quiver size to some not-so-ridiculous values). That way people who kite for fun get a bit of a challenge and it'll stop being the only way to make decent amount of money.

The first defence wasn't perfect map, it was just hillariously unbalanced map. Due to bots coming only from 1 direction, getting stuck on ladders, ranged bots rarely using the ladders, nice running circle and perfect enfilading fire spot. I've seen entire entranced berserker waves range-spammed to death on TFD while being kept back by 1 normal barricade. Sure, it was fun, but by no means balanced.

[The Cid]

All this talk about kiting being a really skillful activity is amusing.

Kiting should be kept in, just increase ammo weight around 10 times so people can either kite extremely slowly or kite with only 1 stack of ammo, which would make kiting unprofitable due to frequent shrine visits (ofcourse, that would mean nerfing archers quiver size to some not-so-ridiculous values). That way people who kite for fun get a bit of a challenge and it'll stop being the only way to make decent amount of money.

The first defence wasn't perfect map, it was just hillariously unbalanced map. Due to bots coming only from 1 direction, getting stuck on ladders, ranged bots rarely using the ladders, nice running circle and perfect enfilading fire spot. I've seen entire entranced berserker waves range-spammed to death on TFD while being kept back by 1 normal barricade. Sure, it was fun, but by no means balanced.

Say what you will about first defence, like it or not it was the most played and popular map.  Maybe it was balanced in the players favor, but your talking about ONE map out of many.

Ask your self's this...Does having 1-2 good kiting maps really harm this mod???

[oposum]

Say what you will about first defence, like it or not it was the most played and popular map.  Maybe it was balanced in the players favor, but your talking about ONE map out of many.

Things cannot be balanced in favour of someone, it's the very definition of imbalance.
Reason why it was the most popular and played map is because it was hillariously inbalanced. People tend to stick with maps which give them easier victories (or a chance to get further than usual).
When you have a wide diversity of maps while players only cling on playing only on 1 or 2 maps, it's pretty obvious that those 1 or 2 maps are far easier to play than the rest of them. To get some balance you either nerf those few maps or you make all those other maps equally easy and it's pretty obvious which route the devs took.

Ask your self's this...Does having 1-2 good kiting maps really harm this mod???

I'm all for kiting as long as long as it's made harder. With current enormous ammo stacks, insanely high rate of fire, ability to outrun all bots and bots being outsmarted by average lemming, it's not really challenging nor skillful.

[madjsoh]

[quote author=The Cid link=topic=24687.msg172383#msg172383 date=1396200425]
Say what you will about first defence, like it or not it was the most played and popular map.  Maybe it was balanced in the players favor, but your talking about ONE map out of many.

Things cannot be balanced in favour of someone, it's the very definition of imbalance.
Reason why it was the most popular and played map is because it was hillariously inbalanced. People tend to stick with maps which give them easier victories (or a chance to get further than usual).
When you have a wide diversity of maps while players only cling on playing only on 1 or 2 maps, it's pretty obvious that those 1 or 2 maps are far easier to play than the rest of them. To get some balance you either nerf those few maps or you make all those other maps equally easy and it's pretty obvious which route the devs took.

Ask your self's this...Does having 1-2 good kiting maps really harm this mod???

I'm all for kiting as long as long as it's made harder. With current enormous ammo stacks, insanely high rate of fire, ability to outrun all bots and bots being outsmarted by average lemming, it's not really challenging nor skillful.
[/quote]

by this logic should shielding be nerfed too? it seems the easiest tactic is getting easier and easier while the one aspect of the game that takes a degree of skill and fast thinking is the subject of discrimination.

on the subject of first defence being an easy map...well, so it should be. we are but 16 Swadians fighting against an enormous amount of Nords. it is only logical to pick a location that evens out the odds. futhremore, first defence was one of the few maps that were completable in what i consider a fair amount of time (2 hours being generous). it was also a map that could cater for all roles. on the subject of nord spawns,well, once again it is logical for the nords to come from the castle walls and not from within the swadians castle.

i can understand that there were some issues with nord pathing on that map. however, totally ruining the map because people became good playing on it was in my opinion not the solution. it is a grind game, the idea is to grind your way up until a point where gear and skill allow for quicker and/or easier completion. by removing kitting and forcing the shieldwall the mod has decreased it's playability by 50%

click touched on what the shield wall has become...easy, simple, and depending on your sway boring. legend rebutted clicks argument with some strong points about what the shield wall should be like, and to an extent what it was like. I remember the days when names such as ragnash, benschie, AEGIS_Peter, ON Eisenhorn and legend where the norm on a server and they exemplified what legend has spoken about above on the shield wall. they provided an example for other players on how to play the mod. since then it is an exception to see them playing and there is little to no one left exhibiting this exemplary play style in game. the bleak reality of what the shield wall tactic has become is as click has outlined previously. i recall discussions on the game when the devs took a firm stance against the shieldwall claiming that is was an easy way to get loot and thus the then subject of discrimination. it is because of this that i now don't understand why it is the shieldwall that is being accommodated for rather than the kite which provides a more challenging and diverse play style when compared to the current shieldwalls.

[oposum]

by this logic should shielding be nerfed too? it seems the easiest tactic is getting easier and easier while the one aspect of the game that takes a degree of skill and fast thinking is the subject of discrimination.

You might have noticed that you cannot pull 1 shielder + 1 slasher ragnar run, but on TFD you could pull it off with 2 snipers/pikeman. Shieldwalls need a bit of coordination and more people, to be effective as kiting. Again, calling kiting a skillful activity is misrepresentation - it is more skillful than being in shieldwall, but only a bit more (mostly because firing/slashing from shieldwall takes about 30 seconds to master).

on the subject of first defence being an easy map...well, so it should be. we are but 16 Swadians fighting against an enormous amount of Nords. it is only logical to pick a location that evens out the odds. futhremore, first defence was one of the few maps that were completable in what i consider a fair amount of time (2 hours being generous). it was also a map that could cater for all roles. on the subject of nord spawns,well, once again it is logical for the nords to come from the castle walls and not from within the swadians castle.

i can understand that there were some issues with nord pathing on that map. however, totally ruining the map because people became good playing on it was in my opinion not the solution. it is a grind game, the idea is to grind your way up until a point where gear and skill allow for quicker and/or easier completion. by removing kitting and forcing the shieldwall the mod has decreased it's playability by 50%

We are 16 swadians fighting a lot of lemmings who cannot hold blocking rythm, are challenged by stairs and cannot use ranged or melee weapons effectivly. TFD didn't cater to all classes, it catered to pikeman and snipers. You could play the map effectively with other classes, but just throwing few cades here and there with ranged spam from pikeman/sniper was enough to do ragnar run. You didn't even need a single SHC. Ofcourse, if your cades somehow did fail, it could just turn into a kiting run. For nord spawn points, nords could use other entrances into the castle, instead of always piling on single one (this could be impossible to do though, warband AI is horrible).
Map wasn't ruined because players become too good at playing it, map was horribly unbalanced and needed a change (you really don't have to put in 300 hours playing a single map to realize whats the optimal way to play it, it takes about 10 minutes).

As for kiting, it's still perfectly possible to kite, only maps aren't designed to make it super-easy. Most probably you won't do prince/ragnar solo run on new maps, but it's still perfectly possible to solo up to juggernauts on most maps. As I've said before, I'm for kiting staying in as long as it's harder and not more profitable than teamplay.

click touched on what the shield wall has become...easy, simple, and depending on your sway boring. legend rebutted clicks argument with some strong points about what the shield wall should be like, and to an extent what it was like. I remember the days when names such as ragnash, benschie, AEGIS_Peter, ON Eisenhorn and legend where the norm on a server and they exemplified what legend has spoken about above on the shield wall. they provided an example for other players on how to play the mod. since then it is an exception to see them playing and there is little to no one left exhibiting this exemplary play style in game. the bleak reality of what the shield wall tactic has become is as click has outlined previously. i recall discussions on the game when the devs took a firm stance against the shieldwall claiming that is was an easy way to get loot and thus the then subject of discrimination. it is because of this that i now don't understand why it is the shieldwall that is being accommodated for rather than the kite which provides a more challenging and diverse play style when compared to the current shieldwalls.

Kiting isn't anymore diverse play style than shieldwall, you still run the same circle on the same map doing things for which you could probably make macro for. As for kiting being more challenging, when I see 1 shielder + 1 slasher do ragnar/odin run I'll admitt it's easier than kiting.
Shieldwalls currently pretty much require no skill to operate effectively. To increase skill necessary you would need to nerf ranged rate of fire a lot (and increase damage a lot, to reward precise shots rather than spam) and have specialized ammo types (cutting and piercing arrows/bolts with different stats), give several specialized types of shields (high resistance, low health shields for blocking swords, high health, low resistance for blocking bots with axes), increase melee headhit bonus (to reward precise hits rather than spam). Ofcourse, this would need enormous amounts of work and would be near-impossible to balance, but one can hope.

[Handef_Snizel]

I don't understand this mod sometimes... We are given 30 or so maps right? And we all have a cry when a few of them are made harder, so that more people play on the other maps. I noticed it first with The First Defense, everybody would play on that, killing Ragnar/Odin with ease. Once that was nerfed, people moved onto town! There must of been HUNDREDS of Odin runs completed on that map. Now everyone is up in arms over the maps getting nerfed?! Poor Swadians actually have to put in some kind of effort now to get things done efficiently. What I am trying to say is 'grow a pair'. We should be able to evolve and adapt to the new maps and their new cading locations.

[madjsoh]

Kiting isn't anymore diverse play style than shieldwall, you still run the same circle on the same map doing things for which you could probably make macro for. As for kiting being more challenging, when I see 1 shielder + 1 slasher do ragnar/odin run I'll admitt it's easier than kiting.
Shieldwalls currently pretty much require no skill to operate effectively. To increase skill necessary you would need to nerf ranged rate of fire a lot (and increase damage a lot, to reward precise shots rather than spam) and have specialized ammo types (cutting and piercing arrows/bolts with different stats), give several specialized types of shields (high resistance, low health shields for blocking swords, high health, low resistance for blocking bots with axes), increase melee headhit bonus (to reward precise hits rather than spam). Ofcourse, this would need enormous amounts of work and would be near-impossible to balance, but one can hope.

kitting is far more diverse and challenging than the current shield wall. you forgot to mention crucial elements such as timing shots in accordance with shields not to mention shooting over them in some cases. you also have to prepare for certain waves. assassins, you job is to pick off the mele ones before they reach you as they are quicker than us swadians. for  ballistas and other ranged waves, you must find a position that deters nords from flanking whilst providing peeking abilities. for juggernauts you need to find yourself a large space which allows you the time to slowly pierce through their heavy armour. and let's not get started on the mixed waves let alone final bosses which are extremely difficult to kite. not to mention when kiting their is a distinct lack of tomes and barrels due to your 1 life in stark comparison to the many lives you get when in a shield wall (by applying your logic that only 2 people can kite at a time). as you can see kitting is no trivial matter and it can catter for more 16 players effectively as you can see on maps such as first defence, hande's retreat and port assault (pre-patch).

the shield wall is far from comparable, to beat a boss above normal it has become accepted that tomes are a necessity and that a spam of cades are crucial. why? because the maps have been made with little to no room for escape unlike my beloved first defence. secondly, the shield wall caters to leechers and afkers where as the kite is far more unforgiving to these hated aspects. lastly, you cannot have a 1 slasher and 1 shielder and call it a shield wall because it's not a wall it's a weaker variant that has been created with the intent of failing in order to prove a point against kiting

first defence was more catering to ranged units. but what map these days isn't. shield walls act as a form of cade preservation that allow the ranged to do more damage whilst saving cades for the final boss. shielding was possible on first defence.