I am a player who can make it to the boss on extreme mode, and i have spent several days enjoying the challenge of trying to make it to the boss on Insane.
The latest patch denies me the right to even play hard mode, until i "kill" the boss of normal mode. Lets be clear here, people can earn colours (an extravagant reward, the sort of thing to show oneself a hardcore gamer) for simply clearing a difficulty... aka surviving UNTIL lvl 50 boss.. and ive cleared extreme..
BUT, to simply ATTEMPT a difficulty - under the new patch - the previous boss has to be killed OUTRIGHT with the full 2.5 million damage.
This is deeply wrong, and here's why:
The creator always set the boss HP on the basis of "Testing" a maze, rather than HP a player in that difficulty category would actually be expected to kill.
This means the HP is far higher than it normally would be, to allow 'super-pros' to show themselves superior to merely 'average pros'.
This means the boss HP was never set with killing bosses OUTRIGHT in mind. The creator seems to have forgotten this when making the latest patch.
Let me say this in simpler terms: I am a player who can SURVIVE all 50 waves of extreme mode. I am a player who can effortlessly cruise through all 50 waves of normal, which offer NO challenge whatsoever and are extremely boring/pointless the 25th time around. Even surviving all 50 waves of Hard mode is fairly easy and no challenge. BUT, because the normal-mode boss's HP is so high, i am unable to kill it outright.
It is actually EASIER to survive untill the boss on _INSANE_ mode, than it is to kill the normal mode boss.
Please re-read that last sentence again.
So after spending a week keenly replaying Insane mode for the genuine fun of the challenge of survival, (which i was coming close to surviving in full), and helping the map get Popularity Playtime; I have now been thrown back down against my will to Normal mode, and i am stuck there; playing through the same pointless super-super-easy 50 waves of normal difficulty till the rest of eternity, despite finding even the Hard 50 waves easy, and finding pleasure only in the challenge of trying to survive Insane's 50 waves.
I can also put it another way, if the above is still confusing:
The result of the latest patch is to COMPLETELY trivialise ALL 49 waves before a boss.
Anyone who is able to actually KILL a boss of a difficulty, will find the preceeding 49 waves so utterly effortless, that they are now being tested soley on their patience of tolerating a badly designed map, up to the point they actually get to face level 50; rather than being tested on any kind of 'wave survival' or 'damage dealing' ability.
Surely this cannot actually be the creators intended vision. One must assume, simply out of respect for the creator, that it is merely a severe developer over-sight, and one that badly needs to be corrected.
If the creator wishes to make the map 'harder' than it was.. then as a player who seeks a skill-based challenge i would genuinely welcome such a change. I would very much enjoy some truely-testing standard waves.
This is what i saught and found enjoyment from before the recent patch.
Now i can only play unchallenging pathetic waves, followed by a sudden disproportionately-hard boss at the end.
I am not the only one with this issue. Many players in-game are now disgusted by the same patch, and chosing not to play anymore. I will be joining them in quitting, because there's simply no point playing now the map has been broken.
I've played like 10 times now. My maze is awesome. I've killed every boss through normal, and was about wave 44 of Extreme tonight before quitting. After not getting a perfect for about 10 straight rounds, I just stopped in frustration. It's dumb.
I realize this game is based on chance, but the percentages have to be off. To illustrate this, I would love to post a screen shot, but I don't know how. Anyways: I rely on my maze to do the work, so I always upgrade my gem chance as fast as possible, usually only doing 1 or 2 25 minerals upgrades on lower combos depending on what I get. This means I have gem chance level 8 before 30. The last game I played I quit because by round 44 I had upgraded lucky chance to leve 4, and didnt get a perfect gem for about 10 rounds, literally. With an additional at what should be a 50% chance to get perfects, I didn't receive one in approx 50 gems. On top of that, I also only got like 3 flawless gems in that time.
I'm posting this now, in frustration, because this is not the first game I've played like this. It seems that in many of the games I've played when I don't upgrade lucky chance (or maybe just 1 or 2 times) I get more Perfects than when I do actually upgrade it. I've asked others about this, and it seems to be a typical thing. It makes no sense.
Any chance your numbers are off? I ask this legitimately, because even the Opal's "attack speed increase" is off by 5% at each level: If it says is should be 15%, it's only 10%, 20 is 15, 25 is 20, so on and so forth.
Losing one player is not gonna bother you I'm sure; but I don't plan to play this again until I've seen that simple math changes (or description updates) are addressed. Way too frustrating to play something that requires so much time just to be dicked around by 'chance'
I love your map. It is a lot of fun and is certainly one of the better (if not best) maps in the pool right now.I really appreciate all of the hard work you have put into it.
I am mid-way through Insane mode at the moment, so i'm not just pulling these suggestions out of my ass.
My ID is Roxy.651 if you would like to confirm.
My suggestions and feedback:
Lucky Chance
This simply doesnt pay off enough to be worth it. The only time I ever do this is if I either am not getting my gems and will die if i dont get them OR if I got some lucky china jades early and was able to rake in the cash to be able to spend it on these. I would suggest either reducing the cost of these or reworking the post lvl8 upgrades.
I am convinced it is impossible to beat extreme mode unless you have 1 of all of the bonus giving gems (+damage/+attack speed, etc.) This makes the game frustrating at times because we simply dont have enough impact on deciding which gems we want. We can have a stellar maze, but if we dont get an egyptian gold, we WILL lose against the final boss. Guaranteed.
I propose that you make it easier for us to build the gems we want.
I propose this be done by allowing us to do the following:
Pay for a re-roll of the 5 gems that we get to select from (say 100$ and we get to re-do and get 5 new gems)
Combine gems that we previously had (say we had to perfect Opal, but already have a black opal in play... it sure would be awesome to be able to get a great opal out of them).
This would also allow us to combine, say 2 regular gems in order to get a flawless one that we need (basically combining 10 gems work into 1)
Finally, and I dont really understand the editor that much, but it would be nice if we could unlock turbo mode for the higher levels, say a reward for beating extreme?. Something along the lines of (enemies gain 100% movement speed and towers gain 100% attack speed)? This would save us from having to spend 1.5 hours a game (and could do 2 games instead! : )
It would also be cool if the builder had an ability to stun. Say like 100 energy and it can stun. You could also give the higher level builders different and better abilities.. or even auras?
Lastly, in the higher levels, AOE damage isnt really that important. It always brings a tear to my eye when I roll a perf ruby. Any way you could change the blood ruby (not positive on name becaus ei dont like it so never try to make it), but change it so it gives towers in its range +10% range or something?)
Some ideas of abilities that the builder could have:
Stun Target
Relocate Tower
AOE Damage
Time warp - send target back 5 seconds
Aura to give +dmg/+attk speed
So ya.. in summation i'm just hoping for the game to add a little more skill to winning (rathe than just being screwed if you dont roll the gems that you need).
Also.. sorry.. i tried to tidy this up with how i was writing this and the website kept crashing and killing my editing of wha tI just typed. Im sure you can understand the gist of it
I like the map. But i cant figure out whats the difference between the builders. I cant find something about that. Is there anything a L5 Builder can do that a L1 Biulder cant ?
First of all: The original map was made by Bryan K from USWest and I played it way more times than I could be bothered to count. So I have quite some GEM TD experiance and I still would like to see Slates. (If you don't know what slates are: Go play the original)
While I agree that having to kill a boss to get to the next dif. level is "not so great", I have to tell you: If you think that killing a normal mode boss is harder than surviving all insane waves, either your maze sucks or you don't know how to place towers at their appropriate position (too spread out).
1) You know that you have to spend 125 minerals to recive the extra chance for the next round?
2) If you don't like random based games, don't play them. It always was like that and hopefully will stay like that because that's the point of GEM TD.
In the original you could choose which gem you get your lucky chance on which I miss aswell.
For most of your other suggestions: I basicly don't agree (others are commented blow). It drives the gameplay pretty far away from the original and also basicly allows you to pretty much ignore the importance of what gem you choose.
Except the speed boost thing, would be great to decrease the time you need to beat insane, my best was somewhere around 3h. And it's totally possible from a developement point of view.
AoE dmg not important? on extrem I would agree but to beat insane you definitly need lots of AoE I wasn't able to beat insane without alot of it and I can say that my maze is pretty much one of the best out there. In case you don't believe me: I'll attach a replay. And Blood Ruby is totaly fine. Also you can't just give a low tier tower something as strong as an 10% range aura.
For your ability suggestions: the only thing I would like to see is to swap towers for the cost of 190 minerals. Like in the original. However that should be a tower ability and be usable only once.
Actually, no. I didn't know that. I didn't play the original and not many people I speak to are actually very helpful. That certainly clears that up. And while I don't expect you would be any more pleasant considering the tone of my post, you have to realize I didn't know this. I never said I don't like games of chance, I simply expressed that it appeared something was wrong. Given my previous misunderstanding, if I was getting no Perfects when I thought I had a 50% chance, then something would have to have been wrong. Since apparently I did in fact only have the 10% chance, the results makes more sense.
And I'm not sure if it's the descriptions or the effects that are incorrect with the Opal, but would be nice if that was corrected.
This whole game has been ruined in the latest patch, its basically unplayable. be glad when its thrown back to the depths of the popularity system, they have over patched it so much that they ruined the entire game, its now 99% luck 1% skill the 1 % is knowing how to place gems...
Its interesting... since bursting onto the EU custom map scene 2 weeks ago, it rose quickly up page 1, and was solidly stuck at #2 about 1 week ago.
Gem TD had been at #2 for about 3 days, with no sign of dropping. Then suddenly the 'newb blocker' is applied in a patch, and within 24 hours GemTD dropped to #3.
Then over the last 3 days the popularity has slowely dropped further, heading down gradually towards #4.
Earlier today it finally got overtaken by Marine Arena, although its worth noting that popularity change is a delayed responce.. GemTD was already being played less than Marine Arena for several days before it finally fell below it.
Ive just checked now, and not only is the map #4, but a big gap has opened up between #4 and #3, meaning the map is still dropping.
I wouldn't be suprised if, in another week it gets overtaken by SotiS and falls to #5.
And once it hit's #5, its a short drop from there to #10, because the difference between the #5-#10 maps is small.
GemTD could even be off Page 1 entirely in a months time.
So "FailTD" was right. I guess its poetic justice for the map maker who doesn't listen to his fans :)
THats mostly because the maker is terrible with his community. He keeps trying to alter the game for people who were playing on the hardest difficulties.
Is there a reason towers are disappearing in late game? or was i being messed with by a third party situation? Replay is posted... sorry it takes a while to get there but on the last wave i made it to my towers started disappearing...
Amazing that a tower defense game made 10 years ago is still so popular. I believe you can download the game as a phone app as well. As for sc2, nope. He is gone.
Gem TD just got ruined, with the latest patch.
I am a player who can make it to the boss on extreme mode, and i have spent several days enjoying the challenge of trying to make it to the boss on Insane.
The latest patch denies me the right to even play hard mode, until i "kill" the boss of normal mode. Lets be clear here, people can earn colours (an extravagant reward, the sort of thing to show oneself a hardcore gamer) for simply clearing a difficulty... aka surviving UNTIL lvl 50 boss.. and ive cleared extreme.. BUT, to simply ATTEMPT a difficulty - under the new patch - the previous boss has to be killed OUTRIGHT with the full 2.5 million damage. This is deeply wrong, and here's why:
The creator always set the boss HP on the basis of "Testing" a maze, rather than HP a player in that difficulty category would actually be expected to kill. This means the HP is far higher than it normally would be, to allow 'super-pros' to show themselves superior to merely 'average pros'. This means the boss HP was never set with killing bosses OUTRIGHT in mind. The creator seems to have forgotten this when making the latest patch.
Let me say this in simpler terms: I am a player who can SURVIVE all 50 waves of extreme mode. I am a player who can effortlessly cruise through all 50 waves of normal, which offer NO challenge whatsoever and are extremely boring/pointless the 25th time around. Even surviving all 50 waves of Hard mode is fairly easy and no challenge. BUT, because the normal-mode boss's HP is so high, i am unable to kill it outright. It is actually EASIER to survive untill the boss on _INSANE_ mode, than it is to kill the normal mode boss. Please re-read that last sentence again.
So after spending a week keenly replaying Insane mode for the genuine fun of the challenge of survival, (which i was coming close to surviving in full), and helping the map get Popularity Playtime; I have now been thrown back down against my will to Normal mode, and i am stuck there; playing through the same pointless super-super-easy 50 waves of normal difficulty till the rest of eternity, despite finding even the Hard 50 waves easy, and finding pleasure only in the challenge of trying to survive Insane's 50 waves.
I can also put it another way, if the above is still confusing: The result of the latest patch is to COMPLETELY trivialise ALL 49 waves before a boss. Anyone who is able to actually KILL a boss of a difficulty, will find the preceeding 49 waves so utterly effortless, that they are now being tested soley on their patience of tolerating a badly designed map, up to the point they actually get to face level 50; rather than being tested on any kind of 'wave survival' or 'damage dealing' ability.
Surely this cannot actually be the creators intended vision. One must assume, simply out of respect for the creator, that it is merely a severe developer over-sight, and one that badly needs to be corrected.
If the creator wishes to make the map 'harder' than it was.. then as a player who seeks a skill-based challenge i would genuinely welcome such a change. I would very much enjoy some truely-testing standard waves. This is what i saught and found enjoyment from before the recent patch. Now i can only play unchallenging pathetic waves, followed by a sudden disproportionately-hard boss at the end.
I am not the only one with this issue. Many players in-game are now disgusted by the same patch, and chosing not to play anymore. I will be joining them in quitting, because there's simply no point playing now the map has been broken.
@FailTD: Go
You care that much about Gem TD?
Wow.
I've played like 10 times now. My maze is awesome. I've killed every boss through normal, and was about wave 44 of Extreme tonight before quitting. After not getting a perfect for about 10 straight rounds, I just stopped in frustration. It's dumb.
I realize this game is based on chance, but the percentages have to be off. To illustrate this, I would love to post a screen shot, but I don't know how. Anyways: I rely on my maze to do the work, so I always upgrade my gem chance as fast as possible, usually only doing 1 or 2 25 minerals upgrades on lower combos depending on what I get. This means I have gem chance level 8 before 30. The last game I played I quit because by round 44 I had upgraded lucky chance to leve 4, and didnt get a perfect gem for about 10 rounds, literally. With an additional at what should be a 50% chance to get perfects, I didn't receive one in approx 50 gems. On top of that, I also only got like 3 flawless gems in that time.
I'm posting this now, in frustration, because this is not the first game I've played like this. It seems that in many of the games I've played when I don't upgrade lucky chance (or maybe just 1 or 2 times) I get more Perfects than when I do actually upgrade it. I've asked others about this, and it seems to be a typical thing. It makes no sense.
Any chance your numbers are off? I ask this legitimately, because even the Opal's "attack speed increase" is off by 5% at each level: If it says is should be 15%, it's only 10%, 20 is 15, 25 is 20, so on and so forth.
Losing one player is not gonna bother you I'm sure; but I don't plan to play this again until I've seen that simple math changes (or description updates) are addressed. Way too frustrating to play something that requires so much time just to be dicked around by 'chance'
Hey Dude,
I love your map. It is a lot of fun and is certainly one of the better (if not best) maps in the pool right now.I really appreciate all of the hard work you have put into it.
I am mid-way through Insane mode at the moment, so i'm not just pulling these suggestions out of my ass.
My ID is Roxy.651 if you would like to confirm.
My suggestions and feedback:
Lucky Chance
This simply doesnt pay off enough to be worth it. The only time I ever do this is if I either am not getting my gems and will die if i dont get them OR if I got some lucky china jades early and was able to rake in the cash to be able to spend it on these. I would suggest either reducing the cost of these or reworking the post lvl8 upgrades.
I am convinced it is impossible to beat extreme mode unless you have 1 of all of the bonus giving gems (+damage/+attack speed, etc.) This makes the game frustrating at times because we simply dont have enough impact on deciding which gems we want. We can have a stellar maze, but if we dont get an egyptian gold, we WILL lose against the final boss. Guaranteed.
I propose that you make it easier for us to build the gems we want.
I propose this be done by allowing us to do the following:
Pay for a re-roll of the 5 gems that we get to select from (say 100$ and we get to re-do and get 5 new gems)
Combine gems that we previously had (say we had to perfect Opal, but already have a black opal in play... it sure would be awesome to be able to get a great opal out of them). This would also allow us to combine, say 2 regular gems in order to get a flawless one that we need (basically combining 10 gems work into 1)
Finally, and I dont really understand the editor that much, but it would be nice if we could unlock turbo mode for the higher levels, say a reward for beating extreme?. Something along the lines of (enemies gain 100% movement speed and towers gain 100% attack speed)? This would save us from having to spend 1.5 hours a game (and could do 2 games instead! : )
It would also be cool if the builder had an ability to stun. Say like 100 energy and it can stun. You could also give the higher level builders different and better abilities.. or even auras?
Lastly, in the higher levels, AOE damage isnt really that important. It always brings a tear to my eye when I roll a perf ruby. Any way you could change the blood ruby (not positive on name becaus ei dont like it so never try to make it), but change it so it gives towers in its range +10% range or something?)
Some ideas of abilities that the builder could have:
Stun Target Relocate Tower AOE Damage Time warp - send target back 5 seconds Aura to give +dmg/+attk speed
So ya.. in summation i'm just hoping for the game to add a little more skill to winning (rathe than just being screwed if you dont roll the gems that you need).
Also.. sorry.. i tried to tidy this up with how i was writing this and the website kept crashing and killing my editing of wha tI just typed. Im sure you can understand the gist of it
Thanks again for the awesome map!
I like the map. But i cant figure out whats the difference between the builders. I cant find something about that. Is there anything a L5 Builder can do that a L1 Biulder cant ?
First of all: The original map was made by Bryan K from USWest and I played it way more times than I could be bothered to count. So I have quite some GEM TD experiance and I still would like to see Slates. (If you don't know what slates are: Go play the original)
@FailTD: Go
While I agree that having to kill a boss to get to the next dif. level is "not so great", I have to tell you: If you think that killing a normal mode boss is harder than surviving all insane waves, either your maze sucks or you don't know how to place towers at their appropriate position (too spread out).
@ManwichTuesday: Go
1) You know that you have to spend 125 minerals to recive the extra chance for the next round?
2) If you don't like random based games, don't play them. It always was like that and hopefully will stay like that because that's the point of GEM TD.
@SeanD86: Go
In the original you could choose which gem you get your lucky chance on which I miss aswell.
For most of your other suggestions: I basicly don't agree (others are commented blow). It drives the gameplay pretty far away from the original and also basicly allows you to pretty much ignore the importance of what gem you choose.
Except the speed boost thing, would be great to decrease the time you need to beat insane, my best was somewhere around 3h. And it's totally possible from a developement point of view.
AoE dmg not important? on extrem I would agree but to beat insane you definitly need lots of AoE I wasn't able to beat insane without alot of it and I can say that my maze is pretty much one of the best out there. In case you don't believe me: I'll attach a replay. And Blood Ruby is totaly fine. Also you can't just give a low tier tower something as strong as an 10% range aura.
For your ability suggestions: the only thing I would like to see is to swap towers for the cost of 190 minerals. Like in the original. However that should be a tower ability and be usable only once.
@Ogrimus: Go
As far as I know those are only skins to look pretty.
Actually, no. I didn't know that. I didn't play the original and not many people I speak to are actually very helpful. That certainly clears that up. And while I don't expect you would be any more pleasant considering the tone of my post, you have to realize I didn't know this. I never said I don't like games of chance, I simply expressed that it appeared something was wrong. Given my previous misunderstanding, if I was getting no Perfects when I thought I had a 50% chance, then something would have to have been wrong. Since apparently I did in fact only have the 10% chance, the results makes more sense.
And I'm not sure if it's the descriptions or the effects that are incorrect with the Opal, but would be nice if that was corrected.
Gem TD has their official forums, I suggest you leave suggestions there.
http://gemtd.net
@Syncness: Go
This whole game has been ruined in the latest patch, its basically unplayable. be glad when its thrown back to the depths of the popularity system, they have over patched it so much that they ruined the entire game, its now 99% luck 1% skill the 1 % is knowing how to place gems...
Its interesting... since bursting onto the EU custom map scene 2 weeks ago, it rose quickly up page 1, and was solidly stuck at #2 about 1 week ago. Gem TD had been at #2 for about 3 days, with no sign of dropping. Then suddenly the 'newb blocker' is applied in a patch, and within 24 hours GemTD dropped to #3. Then over the last 3 days the popularity has slowely dropped further, heading down gradually towards #4. Earlier today it finally got overtaken by Marine Arena, although its worth noting that popularity change is a delayed responce.. GemTD was already being played less than Marine Arena for several days before it finally fell below it.
Ive just checked now, and not only is the map #4, but a big gap has opened up between #4 and #3, meaning the map is still dropping. I wouldn't be suprised if, in another week it gets overtaken by SotiS and falls to #5. And once it hit's #5, its a short drop from there to #10, because the difference between the #5-#10 maps is small. GemTD could even be off Page 1 entirely in a months time.
So "FailTD" was right. I guess its poetic justice for the map maker who doesn't listen to his fans :)
@BobbyFischer: Go
THats mostly because the maker is terrible with his community. He keeps trying to alter the game for people who were playing on the hardest difficulties.
Is there a reason towers are disappearing in late game? or was i being messed with by a third party situation? Replay is posted... sorry it takes a while to get there but on the last wave i made it to my towers started disappearing...
What happend with www.Gemtd.net site?? And why is he not updating the map anymore???? :( This is the only Arcade i play in SC2. We need new modes etc!
And last question.. Why cant i play this on Multiplayer - Custom.. I want to play this game on offline mode :/
You have come a long way for disappointment.
Amazing that a tower defense game made 10 years ago is still so popular. I believe you can download the game as a phone app as well. As for sc2, nope. He is gone.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
But why is he gone? :S Cant someone else keep updating it? or make a new one? haha... Damn!
Maybe we have to wait until Warcraft 4 is coming? :P
i can only guess but i think because of the arcade and it's bad implentation. it has become better now but prolly too late
Too bad! Damn :(
Do you know why I cant play Gem TD offline mode?
From Multiplayer - Custom.. I cant find it in the list :S