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Stone_Knight
April 5th, 2014, 21:04
The question is simple:

I'm using currently the GIM (v.1.51) for making maps --> Is there any possibility to alter the speed of the boulder trap such as in DK 2 1.7. I looked at the feature of this trap already for change it, but I don't find anything. Because in my opinion this would change a lot as advantages for ones and disadvantages for the others, the boulder in 1.7 is very effectiv I had seen before that it killed 10 until 20 creature at ones!

What are you thinking about that any thoughts are welcome!

Metal Gear Rex
April 5th, 2014, 21:10
Look in the Level Variables. Scroll through it and you should see a section about Boulders. One of them is about its movement speed.

Fair warning though. A lot of the settings don't seem to work, but I think the speed does. A lot of the Boulder settings seem to be hardcoded into the game.

Stone_Knight
April 5th, 2014, 21:16
I haven't thought of that, I will see about it instantly and I hope this will work. Thanks Metal Gear Rex!

Shonji
April 6th, 2014, 03:14
Gee, make them even more broken. I am not even going to get into it.

All in all Boulders are more powerful than their cost. They shouldn't be able to KO much period.

Boulder is just another broken thing in DK2. To say otherwise is foolish.

Shonji
April 6th, 2014, 09:24
Of course you're not even going to get into it, because you have no evidence for your statement.

Do you enjoy wasting peoples' time with useless and nonsensical comments? If your own attitude is broken, then don't talk to me about problems (or imaginary problems) in the game.


In Vanilla it could take out about roughly 40% or more health of even level 10 creatures, as well as hit like 10 of them. I recall in the Dark Angel level there is one in Blue's dungeon and it can really screw over even your lvl10 Angels which are practically invincible. All at the cost of what? 1500-3000 gold and no mana cost? I have seen maps realize this and gave them 15k price EACH as well as an upkeep mana cost of 25-75, so you can't spam them. I personally feel such to be a good balance to the Vanilla stats of the Boulder. It isn't uncommon to see entire armies crushed by skillfully placed Boulders. I am sure we can all easily think of maps that this is indeed true.

I admit I don't know how they are in your GIM. I am going off of you saying they are even more powerful and mentioning them possibly KO-ing 10-20 LEVEL8s! If they are worth how powerful they are, then Kudos to you. But if they are just as easily spammable due to how cheap they are, then is a different story. Not all Boulders are easy to counter. Some careful positioning and you are screwed into having to take them head on. Sure you could possess something like an Imp and run into the enemy's base and trigger that, but that is cheap. Some aren't obviously placed like in an open corridor behind a door. Say there is several in the Dungeon Heart room? You are screwed into triggering them and losing your entire army if they are close to capable to 1 shotting even high level creatures.

In the end it is a matter of opinion, maybe you are fine and feel it is right to have a cheap death machine that is easily spammed, or think the Black Knight spam is a valid tactic, or abusing AI is all well and fun. Perhaps yes, or perhaps not. Everyone has a different opinion in the end.

Also please make me sound like a novice or a troll, I assure you I am not. Actually it isn't because I have no evidence, it is because I don't feel like arguing over something so small. What you do is up to you, but you got your explanation.

Stone_Knight
April 6th, 2014, 09:34
Boulders are suosed to be more powerful in the GIM. Did the boulder incapacitate 10-20 level 7-8+ creatures? If it killed 10-20 level one creatures or imps, I don't care.[/QUOTE ]

Yes, right. I had played with my friend and he trained almost all his creatures (black knights, bile demon, salamander and so on) to lvl 8. I couldn't believe that because his army was definitly much stronger as my and the boulder helped me to win : D.

[QUOTE=Wyrmcast; 47289]Advice for dealing with boulders:

*Train creatures as high as you can before attacking enemy dungeons and hero fortresses. The mod is balanced around level eight creatures, and the boulder shouldn't be anywhere close to as effective against level eight Black Knights, Bile Demons, etc. Tougher and higher level creatures should be much more resistant to boulders.

*If you know there is a boulder behind a locked door, be ready for it if you're going to knock the door down. Be ready to pull up creatures and be prepared to have imps ready to pick up knocked-out creatures so they don't die.

*Use sight of evil and other forms of scouting such as imps to find boulders. Look behind locked doors and enemy walls with the sight of evil spell.

*Use imps and possession, to set off and waste enemy boulders.

I already think about his disadvantages. And I consider to change some of his features for example the invisibility. Some of your suggestions to find out the boulder aren't effective, such as sight of evil or with the knowledge that there is a boulder behind this door, anymore . It's only visible after it fired and now I think it's much interesting to use this trap ;).

Metal Gear Rex
April 6th, 2014, 19:56
Of course you're not even going to get into it, because you have no evidence for your statement.

Boulders are overpowered in my patch, I came to that sudden realization when I was testplaying Level 12. I watched as a Level 7 Lord of the Land got wasted by one to two Boulders, it's just absolutely ridiculous. Therefore, it is actually amazingly easy to make the accusation that Boulders are overpowered in GIM. Is this inaccurate because they're like two separate patches? Normally, that would be a valid counter to such an accusation, but in this case, it isn't. That is because we both know that Boulder damage is fixed, hardcoded into the game.

GIM uses even lower Health values than my patch. In my patch, Lords are boss units even, so they have crazy amounts of Health. 4000 at base level and 10000 at Level 7. The highest Health value in GIM is 3453, given to the final boss. Beyond that, your best tank has less than 2k Health, 1813 in fact, and that is your best tank. It's all downhill from there, with your second best tank possessing exactly 1k Health, which is a huge drop. If Boulders do a crap load in my patch using fixed damage that cannot be changed, then it is actually only logical to make the assumption that they do even more damage in GIM, relatively speaking, to the point that, yes, it can be considered overpowered by damage alone.

Boulders are pretty dirt cheap in GIM. They cost 1500 Gold. That's less than a Steel Door, and certainly much less than a Magic Door. For every Gold Block, you get two of these things that can just one-shot most enemies in groups. Not to mention, beyond the cost, there is nothing to balance them. They cost no mana. What is there to prevent people from spamming them? Nothing. Nothing at all. You seem absolutely fine with that though. But it isn't balanced, it's overpowered as hell, and easily abusable to win games, especially for Players who think more outside the box.

You can try to argue all you want that it is balanced or that my opinion is just different, but you need to learn that balance isn't really a matter of a opinion. It is closer to a matter of fact more than anything. You can have different design decisions and approaches on how to handle certain concepts, sure. A Goblin, for instance, could go a number of ways. You could make it so he's like in my patch, where he's a rush type unit that becomes very powerful temporarily because he levels fast, but then starts to get outclassed later on in the game, or you can make it so he's like the DK1 Orc where he's a jack-of-all-trades melee unit. However, whether or not the execution of that idea is balanced, however, is an entirely different matter. Attempting to argue that it isn't overpowered doesn't really change the fact, whether you succeed in convincing people or not.

There's a lot more I could say on the subject, but that is delving more into game design decisions and the GIM in general, beyond simply the Boulder. So I'll keep it at that.

Shonji
April 7th, 2014, 01:01
Well, coming from a standpoint of having played DK1, the boulders in vanilla DKII seem ridiculously weak. I recall them having trouble knocking out a single Black Knight. In DK1 they didn't even just knock out enemies, they instantly killed them. And I remember them killing many enemies at a time. I don't really want them to be that powerful again, but I don't see a problem if they can KO a few creatures. It's not like you can't drop imps to save the incapacitated creatures before they actually die.

I really don't think the boulder is superior to other traps, like the fireburst/spike trap/gas trap. It's easy to drop an imp and waste a boulder trap for nothing, effectively wasting 1500 gold of the enemy. The boulder is only effective when locked behind doors, and even then I think it's possible to pull away the attacking creatures if you're fast - or at least almost all of them - which means the boulder either does no damage, or only part of what it could (depending on player skill). I think boulders are only really a problem, if you have huge clumps of creatures massed up in a tunnel attacking a door with a boulder behind it. Skillful players should be able to defeat boulders easily in most situations, in my opinion.

Not to mention, you can knock down the reinforced walls, to the side of the door with the boulder behind it, with imps. Then use an imp to set off the boulder, and completely waste the boulder. So the boulders are only ever truly obnoxious if they're behind doors imbedded in impenetrable rock, which would sort of be more of a map design problem, if anything, I think.

About the Lord of the Lands and other bosses getting smashed by boulders. Maybe preliminary hero attack parties could advance on the dungeons first before the boss parties arrive, absorbing the boulders before the main boss arrives? Just a thought. I think this problem already existed in DK1.

Of course it is superior. The only thing that comes close to it is Fireburst and that is a very expensive trap gold wise and mana wise. And even that is only good if the enemy stays in it for the entire blast. And even then it usually only gets 1 shot. Boulder is about 1/3 as expensive, cost no mana so you can have infinite of them so long as you have money, and even if you are expecting them, you are gareenteed damage with them. Even if it just damages half your army, that still is all it takes for an all out battle to become a slaughter. So for just 1500 gold and a nice place to spot it. You can possibly win a game through how destructive it is. I have seen it happen to me as well have done it to others back when I played 1.7. 1 Boulder is all it took to win. Add in the rarely use Trigger trap and you CANT trigger it until it is too late.

Sure you could possibly bypass obvious ones but what if they are in the Dungeon Heart? There is no avoiding them in a case like this, no counter whatsoever, you won't know until it is too late and there is no way you are picking up 15-30 or more creatures in the span of a second or 2. So what turned from possibly being a win turns into a terrible loss since now they can go offensive while you have severely weakened troops. And this is Vanilla. If GIM made them stronger or even kept them the same while it reduced health of all creatures. You are making a 1500 gold trap that can possibly kill an entire army of mid to high level creatures, does that really sound fair?

Shonji
April 7th, 2014, 01:31
I don't remember ever seeing a single boulder kill an entire army in DKII. The best I've seen was when I was playing the map Alcatraz, which I had edited to have about 30 or so level 1 creatures and heroes in my army (to test the game). I think I had an army of about 50 creatures (from skeletons, if I remember correctly) and they were all about level 1. Even then with such a pathetic army, the first boulder behind the braced door killed/knocked out I think only 7 weak creatures like goblins, skeletons, dark elves etc. (at level 1) + some imps. And that was after the buff to boulders in the GIM.

I don't think the GIM boulders should be able to knock out more than 2-4 level 8 black knights or bile demons at a time, at best. This seems like nothing compared to DK1, where one boulder could instantly kill like 10 level 10 creatures at a time (or something like that).

Anyway, in your comment you ignored the fact that possessed or dropped imps can completely waste boulders. And that point still stands. At least the other traps can't be completely wasted that way.

In the Dungeon Heart? Seeing as that is the most defended place, you aren't going to get an Imp in there really.

Metal Gear Rex
April 7th, 2014, 02:13
Well, coming from a standpoint of having played DK1, the boulders in vanilla DKII seem ridiculously weak. I recall them having trouble knocking out a single Black Knight.

Ultimately, this is irrelevant as we are discussing the current balance of Boulders in GIM.


In DK1 they didn't even just knock out enemies, they instantly killed them. And I remember them killing many enemies at a time. I don't really want them to be that powerful again, but I don't see a problem if they can KO a few creatures. It's not like you can't drop imps to save the incapacitated creatures before they actually die.

Actually, yes it is. You are in enemy territory, and your army just got destroyed by Boulders while the enemy army is still standing. What are they going to do? They're going to either secure the capture of your army or prevent your Imps from rescuing your army. It's what any decent player would do.


I really don't think the boulder is superior to other traps, like the fireburst/spike trap/gas trap. It's easy to drop an imp and waste a boulder trap for nothing, effectively wasting 1500 gold of the enemy.

That's a very one-sided thing to say. How often is it even possible to do such? Dropping an Imp would imply there is either dirt tiles nearby, which is unlikely, or enemy territory with a Boulder is adjacent to yours, something that is also rather situational. Any decent or skilled Player would be careful about the placement of their Boulders to prevent such easy manipulation.

Also, 1500 Gold isn't that much. It's one Torture Chamber tile.


The boulder is only effective when locked behind doors,

I mentioned that the Boulder is especially abusable for Players who think outside the box. You have very much confined yourself within the box.

When, outside of your first time playing DK1, have you ever seen a Magic Door and have not been suspicious of what could be behind it? It's like the oldest trick in the book. Boulder behind door. It's pretty easy to suspect something is behind that door, so you are more likely to prepare for it. Therefore, making Boulders behind doors actually very ineffective for anyone who isn't careless.


and even then I think it's possible to pull away the attacking creatures if you're fast - or at least almost all of them - which means the boulder either does no damage, or only part of what it could (depending on player skill).

If this were my patch, that would be very acceptable. My patch demands a lot more skill in order to be efficient in combat. However, it isn't my patch. This is GIM, which still bares a strong resemblance to vanilla. The need for skill is rather low. Therefore, would it be justifiable to demand a certain level of skill to get around one specific trap? I think not.


I think boulders are only really a problem, if you have huge clumps of creatures massed up in a tunnel attacking a door with a boulder behind it. Skillful players should be able to defeat boulders easily in most situations, in my opinion.

Well it's a one-sided comparison. Skillful Players will naturally counter the plays of an unskillful Player. Skillful Players using Boulders will use more skillful tactics abuse Boulders into oblivion.


Not to mention, you can knock down the reinforced walls, to the side of the door with the boulder behind it, with imps. Then use an imp to set off the boulder, and completely waste the boulder.

Ok, if that isn't a highly situational solution, I don't know what is. The same thing I said about dropping Imps to disarm Boulders also applies here.


So the boulders are only ever truly obnoxious if they're behind doors imbedded in impenetrable rock, which would sort of be more of a map design problem, if anything, I think.

You can't really blame the level designer for that at all. That's a Player being smart. It's a reward for him actually thinking and using his surroundings to his advantage. The only reason why that is a problem is because Boulders are overpowered to begin with.


About the Lord of the Lands and other bosses getting smashed by boulders. Maybe preliminary hero attack parties could advance on the dungeons first before the boss parties arrive, absorbing the boulders before the main boss arrives? Just a thought. I think this problem already existed in DK1.

That is an extremely poor solution. Actually, it's not a solution at all. It just is a clever level design trick to hide the fact that one of the inner game mechanics is broken as hell. The problem with using this kind of level design trick to balance Boulders, or any mechanic really, is that the game then relies on that kind of level design support in order to find its balance. This effectively cripples level design potential by adding a requirement of every level with the broken mechanic in place. If Boulders were actually balanced to begin with, then there wouldn't be a need for this kind of trick at all.

Even if this idea of yours was an actual solution, it is still very poor. Whether or not Hero Parties entering prior actually sets off a Boulder is something that is beyond the control of any designer. Patched Level 12 actually does have that, parties that attack the Keepers. But most of them die by the Keeper armies before they can get far, and most if not all the time they fail to set off the Boulders. You just can't effectively control that.


I don't remember ever seeing a single boulder kill an entire army in DKII.

Boulders, when used to highest efficiency, can roll over an army multiple times. It is very easy to abuse this. Though, in GIM, it seems needless to use this kind of tactic as Boulders seem to one-shot nearly everything.


I don't think the GIM boulders should be able to knock out more than 2-4 level 8 black knights or bile demons at a time, at best. This seems like nothing compared to DK1, where one boulder could instantly kill like 10 level 10 creatures at a time (or something like that).

Just because it's not as bad as DK1 doesn't make it any better for GIM. That's a very weak defense and also rather flawed logic.


Anyway, in your comment you ignored the fact that possessed or dropped imps can completely waste boulders. And that point still stands. At least the other traps can't be completely wasted that way.

What if there's a door in the way that prevents access to the enemy's dungeon? Or a Fear Trap? What if there's a Spike Trap on the way to the Boulder that kills the Imp?


Depends if you can use Earthquake and imps to dig out a bunch of reinforced walls around the heart, and then run a possessed imp around the heart fast (I think).

Do you know how absurd a tactic that is? The fact that such ridiculous tactics are even required to counter specifically Boulders goes a long way on its own to tell of how broken they are. Yes, these ridiculous tactics are necessary. You can't really argue against that because anyone who is playing to win will use them. Why? Because they're very dangerous and dirt cheap. Why wouldn't you use them if all you care for is winning? Boulders have the potential to be devastating, I think even you are willing to admit that, so why not? Why not go for it just to have that possibility of cleaning out the enemy? Even if it fails, who cares? You literally have nothing to lose, it's 1500 Gold, which is not much. For one Gold Block, you can get a two-for-one deal!

Boulders are overpowered. Hellishly overpowered.

Stone_Knight
April 7th, 2014, 09:45
[QUOTE=Wyrmcast;47317]The boulders shouldn't be killing 10-20 high level creatures at a time (at least not bile demons and black knights). I didn't intend for that. Unless you upped the damage somehow, I guess I will have to test more to make sure they are working right.

Invisible boulders are definitely not something I'd like in the regular game, but it's fine if you made your game like that.[/QUOTE ]

Not necessary I just said it for v1.7 and the boulder trap in GIM is ok. In your mod it isn't aggressive such as in 1.7 don't worry about it.