Counter to mobility & surprise critical burst damage at base

genius

This is a good point you bring up, of course this is not the first time I've felt this way. But you can't mention mobility without forestry, these two go hand in hand. Even if the stamina cost was implemented (Let's say something like 12 per cast), the forestry stam regen would easily make up for the stamina cost; But all at the same time, discourage other skill builds when choosing this equipment setup. I don't think anyone would opt to go for a high mobility gear setup without forestry other wise. I've been considering a slight forestry nerf, during combat to adjust for this. As stamina management is negligible with forestry or even artisan. Something like a speed to stamina ratio might be necessary as well.

As for critical strikes against squishy targets, the only time I've really seen this being an issue is during the early-mid game when kobolds are not properly geared or caught out of guard. But yes some sort of defensive means for crit damage during the early phase seems appropriate.

I'm currently trying, to hasten the 'start of the game' and make the end game more predictable in terms of game duration and outcome. Frankly, any game that goes longer than 30~40 minutes makes me cringe as it serves little purpose in terms of game play. It becomes a cat and mouse game of revive and kill until someone gives up. Another problem I hate is, how heavily dying punishes players during the early-mid game. You lose all your momentum, all the while a teammate is forced to slow down in order to pick you back up.

Yes, I guess Forestry is big part of the overmobility scheme. I sometimes was thinking about capping the sequential stamina gain from killing trees such as that one would gain full stamina gain from first tree, then reduced stamina for each tree within a cooldown time period. Or perhaps a penalty factor to all stamina gained while in combat. I appreciate the response and count on you to make your best game developement decisions Broot, thanks for the awesome patching and working on of Kobold Tribes as always!

No, pls don't take this route of arguments. I have participated in tournaments in inhouse play and been firstpicked enough to know I do not have the skill deficiency personally.

You are correct about the efficiency of this build being greatly affected by the micro level of the executor. But you are incorrect in assuming that simply going Sawtooth is versatile or justifiable in the greater sence, we want to have as much legitness acrossboard on all builds, without resorting to thinking that if player Y does X then we have to simply do Z, which is a singular Art 20 gear item. Specialized gear aside, I'll repeat the main problems of this type of build again, so you can think about them in theory, and just assume all players are going to be of equal experience and skill level. Lets also assume a public game, not an inhouse one, since I wouldn't consider balance issues for anything but the public game scene as I am not aware of any inhouse gaming to currently exist, and since traditionally any and all inhouse playing builds upon the solid thinking that balance is what it is, and artful abuse of the overpowered areas and dodging of the underpowered areas without too much thinking about the enjoyability of noob friendliness, as these are not the areas where inhouse games are built upon.

This shifts the perspective to also improving the noob friendliness of the game when and where possible without making it uninteresting and dull for the veterans, which I admit, implementing this suggestion might do to some extent. Though, specific counter options are usually making the game more interesting rather than less, as make no mistake this suggestion is a suggestion to create a specific, not an universal or automatic counter or a straight out nerf. The specifism of this scenario thus once more repeated:

1) Aggressor going for a timed attack, meaning, as soon as Stiletto/Savage/Mantle are created and whatever the attackers usual other supplements such as a few beers, roasted berry pheasant and some cooked lambs might be, aggressor heavily leaning on the element of surprise. Also leaning heavily on timing, meaning that any mistake the defendee has made gearing or collecting food and spells will multiply. No specific counter wanted here. This is the skill and strategy route part that I want to exist and cherish. I have no problems with people going for effective timing builds as this is core of semi competitive Kobold Tribing. I suggest nothing to be done against timing builds OR to close the gap between players who are faster at crafting their gear than those who are not as fast. No suggestion here, this is an awesome natural part of KT I think!

2) Element of surprise specific counters thus far none, thanks to Lurkers Mantle hiding the Shadow Cloak ripples. First point I would prefer to have some sort of counter for, even just a stationary one that only affects the safe haven of your base. Its very distracting to be micro intensively ecoing at the base and suddenly being shift-queued a cloaked, critting Javelin followed by Lurkers invis to a Stag Stiletto backstab disarming critical strike with the active of Stiletto utilizing the active invisibility gained from Lurkers. So here I would propably make the aggressor have to more carefully scout out where he is walking, since if passive detection would be available at the base, he would not benefit from critical strikes (unless with 25 mining ofcourse skilled) and he would also physically enter the detection and vision of the defendee, thus losing some of the element of surprise in this specific scenario. Jumping someone at their base where they would have properly set up their defense against this type of attack. Currently, no defense for this type of attack exists in the game, no passive true vision, hence the suggestion to add this specific counter to the game for those who desire it. A player could more aggressively go for the squishy builds, for example mage builds without that much endurance, when knowing that they have an increased chance of not getting flat out picked off without a chance of escape or counter. Thus shifting meta to possibly encourage a larger diversity of builds.

3) Finally the mobility part is like before I said about Sawtooth its simply not viable to suggest that any build with too large mobility advantage would simply be legit game design route to force players to build a Snipers Parapet to counter for. Even more so in this case, where Lurkers Mantle can be used with the active to escape the Parapet forticiation. This counter already exists, but its a specialized singular item, and thus not satisfactory answer to a larger, more general phenomenon. Also, this item, Snipers Parapet, is debatable whether its ability to trap and and enclose Kobolds in itself is good or fitting to the overall game play of Kobold Tribes or not, I prefer to think its one of these Kobold Tribes New unpolished things that should actually not even exists, as it has quite a dulling and game/chase/fun killing potential and thus serving the game negatively in my opinion, both thinking for inhouse but especially public, more casual games. But these issues, mobility, and Lurkers Mantle not giving off ripples and leaving no self defence window for the victim are quite separate and debatable and down to matter of opinion and personal preference.

Ultimately I know Broot is aware of mostly all the possible things that one can think of here, and will propably adjust or not adjust things as he personally sees best, so, these suggestions, are only suggestions from my perspective, and observations I have made, so thanks again for reading them and be welcome to add more comments or whatever discussion you like again. Thanks for your reply and thoughts twocentsible. I especially appreciate your multiple and well thought out points that you made here, and for mentioning some good valid items to both problems, even if I don't personally think that such specific answers would generally be the best game design choices to force upon a player to make to counter these things in the more general sense!

Sorry for the bad writing and unclear points as well, this discussion is propably going a little too complex and multi-point for my writing / brain skills to fully comprehend anymore as well