about digging corruptron

LoSboccacc

I like the digging part because it keeps players to cheapen out too much on defenses, however, it has been annoying because:

- sometimes when they dig they burrow under the voxels and I've to manually dig each voxel to have a guard path to them
- it's quite too fast, they dig faster than one can seal back after the wave, especially at later levels where killing a wave takes time
- if the map has you at the top of a ravine, it's guaranteed they'll dig all the way up, even if there's a convenient road next
- they dig straight to the crystal and because of the burrowing you can't do much but wait till they exit


digging around fortification is fine and challenging, but the current implementation feels off to me.

I'd like to see them sap under walls, not under the whole map.

LoSboccacc

*crickets chirping*

Shatojon

Hey LoS,

Sorry for the quiet, we've been super busy at GDC, PAX and preparing 0.9.

I can see why you'd find it annoying. I'll discuss it with the team. However, keep in mind that it's pretty easy to send a knight over to the entrance of the Corruptrons' tunnel and stop 'em in their tracks.

Removing the feature entirely would bring back the issues that this feature solved.

LoSboccacc

the problem is that it is *not* easy. as they die and dig the dirt fills the tunnel, so to reach the others digging you have to dig through, which is a voxel by voxel extremely annoying fight between the camera and the cursor to select the right voxel to smash

if the dirt to voxel consolidation where significantly longer, one could do what you say, but it's not the case.

rachelghoul

i've had the same issue, but have had 3 waves in a row slowly digging staircases up in the cliff walls to reach lanterns.

like, seriously?

Shatojon

Sorry about that guys, I'm forwarding this to our QA.

Iszard

Heyo, after returning for .9 I must say I've found a new love for the game. However I too am quite frustrated by the amount of digging corruptions do. I've been honing my skills on Exile - Invasion. In this map from the crystal you can rope bridge up cliffs to gain additional supplies. Corruption *far* below focus my workers and start the mile high tunneling to reach them instead of my clear path to my crystal. I could understand if the workers were archers or sentinel's as being damaged would set aggro to the corruption. Otherwise why are corruption digging up to workers that should be out of the corruptions own fog of war.

Additionally I use the common steps defense to slow the attacking corruption, otherwise I lose by around wave 8, but find corruption on the outskirts trying to dig up the cliff sides to reach my defenses. I understand the digging up to or around the defenses *but* this takes them multiple waves of time, 8 min per wave, for a single corruption to make it up to or through the cliff / wall. Were the faster method would still be walking down the path of steps as in later waves, waves 25-28 my best so far, push through and overwhelm me. I'm fine with this overwhelming end as I get I need to quarry more and gain more units by this time. But the corruption from waves in the early 20's are still tunneling by the time I lose. At this point upwards of 5 waves from there origin wave, roughly 40 mins of digging. I think they picked the wrong method to get to my defenses if it is taking them nearly 40 mins to dig while the rest of there pack seems to take on more of a zerg style attack strategy, which in the end is what overwhelms my defenses anyway.

I agree with previous comments its not easy getting to the diggers either. Getting a Brickton through my step style defense takes some time, while corruption bare down on them as well. Also corruption tend to "slip" through or into blocks. Becoming unreachable or unreachable without intense focus on digging them out. Could tunneling corruption not be forced to tunnel like Brickton do? As in make a tunnel? I believe at the very least a 2 x 2 tunnel, to fit those bigger corruption. Without leaving "dirt" to clog the tunnel, I get the stone pieces that can be collected. Clogging a tunnel only serves to make it harder for other corruption to follow or the user to send Brickton Knights in after. Tunneling in this method may stop corruption from slipping through the ground as Brickton don't behave like this when they tunnel.

Iszard

Maybe introducing a "mining/worker" type corruption, These type have less attack strength but more of a desire and know how to tunnel. This would go in line with PvP style combat as well were we are advised to bring a worker with our attacking groups to help "dig" through the other players walls.

LoSboccacc

any news on this? just removing dirt generation from digging corruptron would go miles for making the mechanic not frustrating. haven't played since because of how annoying is to dig them out once the dirt reform ground and burrows them.

Shatojon

Hey @LoSboccacc - I'll bring this to our designers' attention again.

Shatojon

Hey @LoSboccacc - I discussed this with our AI lead again.

The reason we introduced the Corruptrons digging feature in the first place was to solve issues that occured in situations where, for example, the player would dig a moat around his castle and be completely, absolutely impossible to reach by the Corruptrons' AI.

However, there is definitely an issue currently, as updates happened, we tweaked the amount of damage Corruptrons take and sometimes they'll start digging at a mountain side instead of attacking your wall, even if they can reach it. We're aware of this and it's on our radar now, we'll look into a solution ASAP.

LoSboccacc

thanks a lot for the update!

as an aside, I'm fine with digging corruptrons, it is the combination of digging corruptron + corruptron leave dirt when they die + dirt become a new block and obstruct the passage of knights that was annoying to me, but lowering the priority of digging should work too!

Shatojon

Hey LoSboccacc,

All the things you mentioned (including the rubble left around and merging into a new block) are things we are looking into right now.

Sit tight

CastleBuilder

I have to say that the digging has become less of a problem now on my favorite map Plateau Mont-Royal. Instead of the corruptrons dealing with my step defenses they go for walls that lack the defense even if I leave them a 4x4 entrance with no doors or gates at said step defenses. Don't know if this was intended or not, but it's welcomed since it stops corruptrons from trying to fruitlessly dig into cliffsides.

Well not fruitlessly actually, but more annoyingly since getting them out is a pain in the ass due to how small the tunnels are. Additionally the new camera "settings" or whatever you want to call it makes it hard to look into structures and tunnels since it now likes to auto surface to the nearest block outside of a structure or block. Yeah X-Ray is a thing, but it's not infallible and looks ugly IMHO.