Hello, with the new melee/range toggle ability from Rathas, I was wonder if Konniks could have a new mechanic to make its microing much more interesting.
The idea is the ability to toggle between mounted and unmounted konnik instead of make the transition when the mounted konnik dies.
How would it works?
With a new button you can toggle but any change takes a couple of seconds while the unit can’t move. F.e 4 secs (similar to pack/unpack trebs). If you command the unit to any action the transition is cancelled
About the hp. It could works with porcentages. So, 4 damage for dismounted Konnik will result in 10 for mounted Konnik. And vise versa, healing dismounted konnik will be more effective than mounted konnik.
Maybe deal with pikes. So you can choose between runaway mounted or engage dismounted.
Open a wall because dismounted konnik have bonus vs buildings and then mount and start to ride.
Maybe dismounted konnik could recieve some hp or armor buff. This way you could deal better against camels.
The reason that dismounted konnik is weak is just because of the dismount mechanic. Konnik has 155hp in total (110 mounted+45 dismounted), but if you have to toggle then can work as two different units.
Most people seem to think it doesn’t fit perfectly and would entail a lot of changes that aren’t really needed, just for the sake of variety. Ask yourself:
-Does this address any weakness that the Bulgarians have in terms of power, or in going up against certain enemy civs or unit compositions?
-Does this address current poor performance or uselessness of the Konnik that make it a good candidate for a redesign?
-Does this solve more problems than it creates?
-Is the new design more intuitive and user-friendly than the old?
All of these I would answer with a firm “no,” hence, no need to transform the Konnik from its current role to something linked only by a superficially similar, but practically very different mechanic.
I agree with others that this is a possible basis for a future UU though.
Talking about Konniks, I think the dismounted Konnik should benefit from Bagains, currently the dismounted konnik has a wayy slower ROF (2.4 XD), with better melee armor means that can actually truly force the opponent to go for an army comp vs Konniks.
Interesting idea, but that would amount to a significant buff for a unit that already provides good value, on a civ that’s doing reasonably well.
If needed they could just increase the RoF (or add Bagains), but doing either would call for a stat nerf elsewhere.
It always felt wrong that stirrups lets the mounted Konnik attack so much faster than the dismounted version. If they don’t want to make Bagains affect dismounted version, it should at least attack faster.
Attacks slower because of the very first DE patch, that nerfed Konnik in many ways because was completely broken at the time.
But now it doesn’t get any sesnse to have worse ROF than champion while having worse melee armor.
Konniks are good but don’t get enough use at pro level because, as Hera said, don’t give a solid role on the Bulgarian army that Bulgarian Cavalier can do.
Lot of changes is to say too much. Is change a single unit. Even not saying to change its stats, just a mechanic that seems to be at half way.
All these are the wrong questions. Is not a balance suggestion. Is a mechanic upgrade.
Does the idea add a layer of strategy and decision making which are the core of Age of Empires games to a unit that doesn’t have it? Absolutly Yes.
The current mechanic is bland. You don’t decide when use it, you could just banish the dismounted konnik and give mounted konniks more HP and will give you the same result.
You can tell me that leave a group of konniks die against some spears to “obtain” the dismounted konniks and kill the spears is a decision, but it is a silly one. In all scenarios a cav unit engage a fight vs pikes when is abolutly necessary, no matter if is a konnik, a knight, a Leiti, etc… So, the pseudo mechanic is just aesthetic.
Eh, having 2 lives is plenty exciting to me. Not every UU needs to involve some complex tactical mechanic, and the Konnik is already one of the more interesting and usable UUs.
You’re entitled to your particular vision of course. The real problem? Getting (lots of) other people on board.
Is not about complexity, is about usability of the mechanic. F.e. Keshik mechanic is usable, but simple. You can decide to engage units or buildings to generate gold or not. if worth it or not is another discussion.
Coustellier is another better than Konnik. You can decide to keep figthing with low dps or run to give charge attack time to recharge. There are micro decision involved.
Konnik is not interesting or usable because of the dismounted mechanic. Is usable because of its good stats and because of being easier to mass from Kreposts.
Be honest, would you be “sad” if devs remove the actual dismount mechanic and gives konnik +45hp in return? Honestly, would you say that konnik would become a better or worse unit?
Do you feel more exciting with something that just happen when you actually lost a fight, or with something that you can chose when it happen and can make win a fight or not?
The horse just disappear. Is just a detail, how can mangonels move without humans? The game is plenty of unrealistic licenses in order to prioritize the gameplay.
It is interesting that Persians Longsword and generic Light Cav beat dismounted Konnik 1v1. If Dismounted Konnik at least has THS level strength, dismount mechanic would be useful. However, dismount mechanic is one of the unrealistic (why other cavs doesn’t have this) and useless mechanic in the game. Devs did this make sake of introducing new mechanic.
Keshik is good because it provides good value for its (low) cost. The gold trickle is a nice little bonus but doesn’t really add another layer of choice as to how the unit is used or microed.
I think it would make the unit a lot more boring, and it would become worse vs. Camels and Halbs, and possibly slightly better vs. other units.
Also, let’s go why your suggestion, as currently presented, is a very clear downgrade over the current design:
-Regarding utility, the only (good) reason to sacrifice the higher HP and DPS of cav vs. infantry is to avoid bonus damage from halbs and camels. However, the dismounted version has ~1/3rd the HP, so camels and halbs can be thought of as doing 3x damage to it, entirely mitigating any advantage you’d have by fighting on foot. If you’re going to try getting around that by tripling the dismounted unit’s HP or adding unholy amounts of armor, just make a new unit, because what you’re proposing will end up having almost nothing in common with the current (good) design. You’ve latched on to this for some reason, possibly because of the superficial similarity between the two-lives Konnik and a unit that can mount and dismount, but there’s no good reason to make this change, and a few bad ones. In the majority of fights where you’ll want to remain in cav form, this just ends up as a significant nerf for the Konnik, as there’s no second life.
-There’s a lot of downside if you don’t micro your hypothetical new unit perfectly. Konnik is good because players get good value in a lot of matchups without having to worry whether their choice of toggle will make the unit die much faster. (In most games at any decent level, there is plenty of micro already even when you’re dealing with “basic” units with no toggle or charge mechanics). This unit is bad because the toggle timer means they will get absolutely destroyed if the infantry version is caught out by archers or siege and tries to switch to cav, and usually means they will also take a lot of free hits/shots if enemies are near when they are changing.
You have some interesting ideas, they just don’t seem very grounded in design principles I consider pretty basic, and your advocacy for them seems whimsical and random rather than based in any kind of need beyond your own preference.
Well, Nowadays dismounted konnik is almost a meme unit because their stats are limited because the design of mechanic.
If this new mechanic would be implemented dismounted konnik could be tweaked to make it more useful. Full konnik could be a more interesting strat because mounted and dismounted konnik complement eachother weaknesses.
Fair, but obviusly, the low hp of dismounted konnik is consequence of the mechanic. A castle age heavy melee infantry unit can’t have less than 60Hp. The only infantry units with <45HP have cheap cost, high speed, insane damage or ranged melee attack.
Dismounted konnik should have more HP to be an usable unit instead of a meme unit.
The reason is solid. It adds micro and strat elements. Tell me why you want to keep a fancy mechanic that don’t give you nothing that a cool animation.
Still would have great value, nobody push you tu toggle, but if you learn to master the dismount mechanic you can exploit the unit in its whole potential (like archers splits, push deers or any other micro feature). Anyway, you can use the mounted version all the match if you want, just like Ratha.
Speaking of Rathas, What would you think if Ratha mechanic would be something like, is a Cav archer until you shot 20 arrows, then change to melee because all the ammunition was spent … Even this have more strat value than Konnik.