the second race has been polished and is balanced. Due to some bugs in battle.net2 my popularity has sunken dramatically and it has become much harder to play testgames with random people. I have a good bunch of testplayers, but I need people who are completely new to the map because they will probably like/try/etc diffrent things than my battleweary testers.
Looking for this kind of feedback
Firstly, what I am specifically looking into at the moment is game difficulty in every aspect. How easy it is to get into the game? Did you beat the first boss leakfree on your first playthrough? How many tries did you need to beat the whole map on Normal difficulty? How far are you getting on higher difficulties? Of course any other type of feedback is welcome as well.
Secondly, I require more awesome screenshots for the project page! I added some new ones, but they s*ck in comparison to the old ones. I need new ones since I want the screenshots to reflect newer version of the interface etc. If you can send me some nice screenshots they will proably be added to the project page and you have a chance to appear in the Special Thanks on the loading screen.
How to get the map:
For EU go to Join Custom Game and select "Tower Defense". Icecrusher TD 2 (survivor faster) should be somewhere on the first page.
For all other realms: If you want to apply to publish the map on other servers than EU please contact me via email or sc2mapster.
Last but not least some general information taken from the official project page
Solo mazing td (tower defense) map for 1 to 4 players. Set in a remote ice world and with nowhere to run you must fight the reckless onslaught of ever more trickier mob waves. Construct a nifty maze with wall pieces, towers, and traps to spell certain doom for your enemies.
Features
White arrows on the ground will show the anticipated path of the creep waves.
Custom snow terrain.
Multiple races with unique towers.
Account level up system unlocks goodys allowing you to show off your experience and skill.
Multiple boss waves including special events during these waves which you have never seen before in any other td.
Dozens of mob waves, sometimes even with special abilities such as hardened shields, ground waves spawning flying enemies, and more.
Your worker gains skill points to unlock special race independent abilities and upgrades such as mineral interest, bonus lifes, more supply, mobile support units, nukes and many more!
Different armor types require ellaborate strategies and tower placement.
Map keeps track of your best records for every difficulty and other stats.
Four difficulties: Normal, Hard, F''KING Insane Mode, and Asian (higher difficulties award more xp!).
All towers have placement and selection weapon and special ability range indicators.
Help systems guide you towards important upgrades or show you if your maze needs improvement.
Resource distribution on player leave is disabled.
Noteworthy exceptions in mechanics
Armor: Every point of armor decreases incoming damage by 10%!
Mazing: Mobs will fit even through the tinyest of holes. Diagonally adjacent buildings will NOT block pathing.
Leaks: If you leak an enemy it will run through your maze again with increased speed!
Difficulty: Playing on a higher difficulty will make you start with less lifes, lose more lifes upon leaking, and enemies are more powerful! However, you will also recieve many more experience points to level up significantly faster!
Screenshots
Some of these screenshots may be outdated since the map is still recieving a lot of content every day.
Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks
How to get started?
Build something like the following screenshot. Surround waypoint 1 and build an alley towards waypoint 5. Once you reached waypoint 5 surround it as well and leave an opening somwhere in the middle. Expand your maze from this hole on outwards. Keep spending your minerals on towers with a slight tendency towards Defense Platforms (dont' upgrade them yet!). As soon as you got enough gas research "Focus Fire" and then save for "Air Killer". After you have killed the first boss try to save up for an Immortal and a Storm Cannon. Place both in a way that they may reach air waves.
Advanced Tips or How to get past wave 10
If you are having troubles with the Pink Goliath wave try to incorporate more Soul Projectors and Storm Cannons into your build. At least one each before the wave starts. Research as many general and individual upgrade for Soul Projectors as possible.
If you are working with Traps make sure they hit air waves at least one time. If you manage to place them in a fashion that they hit air waves you might want to research "Burning Skies" and skip "Air Killer". This will make your build very gas efficient and still kill air waves without effort despite not having Air Killer researched.
All in the making except more waves. I already cut a wave completely a few weeks ago since the game has become too long. I will not do anything to the map which could increases one game's duration any further.
Third race is coming when somone suggests a good idea for one :)
More Unlocks etc are already in the making, but I am taking my time since I don't just want to add boring stuff. Every unlock should be something fun or meaningful.
Well, i was not explicitely talking about more waves but about a different layout or something. Like Coop-TD. I love to play coop :) When we play your td we all quit the game always when someone gets killed so its somewhat of a team td for us anyway :D
Well, yea the Siegebreaker level was kinda boring compared to the waves around it, i agree with the removal.
By saying "you need suggestions", do you mean explicit towers or a general theme for the towers?
In Regards to the Unlocks. I, for myself, dont have the Pink Mega Probe activated. I just find it annoying :) I guess, you wont make any gamechanging Unlocks but just Gimmicks right?
Well, i was not explicitely talking about more waves but about a different layout or something. Like Coop-TD. I love to play coop :) When we play your td we all quit the game always when someone gets killed so its somewhat of a team td for us anyway :D
Well, yea the Siegebreaker level was kinda boring compared to the waves around it, i agree with the removal.
The map has been planned and programmed as a solo td and the best thing you could hope for is that there will be a mode where enemies have more hitpoints and all leaks will move to your ally and only then it will cost you lives :) Something like that.
In Regards to the Unlocks. I, for myself, dont have the Pink Mega Probe activated. I just find it annoying :) I guess, you wont make any gamechanging Unlocks but just Gimmicks right?
Most people, including myself, love the pink mega probe, and you can always leave it turned off :)
Just added "Snow Camouflage" for Raynor's Raiders (level 41) and it looks awesome. That could be more in your style?
Okay, then i will live with that. The map is still awesome :)
General theme...hm, in my TD in warcraft i used a nature theme as my third race. But it should be pretty hard to do it in SC2 without a nearly complete set of custom models. Well, there are a couple of animals/neutral things running around on a normal map but i dont know if this is enough. In WC3 it was pretty easy as half of the game is more or less nature-based :D
As for a gameplay twist/change you could do something like a symbiosis. If you build the towers on their own they are a bit weak and they can only defend to a certain degree with a good maze.
But if you build them
1. next to each other so that each tower gets a particular upgrade,
2. build/research them in the command panel so that you say "i want to build tower A with the smbiosis with tower D" and then you get the icon or whatever to place it,
3. just give the opportunity to upgrade a tower into different towers. I dont mean it as a normal upgrade but as a special thing for what you might need an extra ressource (maybe fire for a fire symbiosis to deal extra dmg vs biological if you have problems with a certain biological wave like the redstone crabs)
then they get a "big" advantage.
Then you have to decide which symbiosis you should place where and certain symbiosises are stronger versus certain things. It would be obviously best if there are multiple building/techpaths to take. With this system you could have quite a diversity of strategies and a unique gameplay/techstuff.
edit: i think you can set the status of your map on this site on Release instead of beta by now ;)
edit2: was surprised that the tanks which are spawned by terratron have some shields. my friend was kinda shocked because he sold the 2-3 flame traps which he built for the thors but he barely managed it. I had nor problems since i had dat banshees with their emp-range of 500 million
edit2: was surprised that the tanks which are spawned by terratron have some shields. my friend was kinda shocked because he sold the 2-3 flame traps which he built for the thors but he barely managed it. I had nor problems since i had dat banshees with their emp-range of 500 million
hardenend shields for siege breakers is one idea currently implemented to make the siege breaker unit more interesting. still don't know what to change exactly for them but I was unhappy with their current state.
aaaannnd what are your thoughts towards my suggestions for the third race?
Jeah what you expect me to say? :D The concept is fine. I had something very similar in Icecrusher TD 1 for Warcraft 3. If you played GemTD, it also has a "symbiosis" system where you "melt" towers together from (random) pieces you get assigned. However, I didn't want to do something but do more like a spellcaster type of thing where towers would require energy delivered from other towers (similar to MINERALZ's towers) and/or most towers get auras with short ranges (3 building grids max) which affect everything around them but not themselves and possibly even stack.
However, this all does not fix the problem of not having a general (optical/lore) theme for the new race and as long as this not very fleshed out I cannot start the race (since optical effects, selection of attack animations and lore texts play a huge role in the development and as such you should set a "theme" right from the beginning and stick with it).
so you already have a general idea of what the towers should do. It is just the optics that are missing. if you arent satisfied of a nature setting (which in my opinion fits for an aura based type of towers) then i cant help you with this :)
personally, i do not like the idea of energy delivered towers. imo there is too much other stuff besides the tower shooting^^
The problem is: I do not want to rely heavily on custom models. It would be nice to somehow utilize something which is already in SC2. Some models look odd or custom (for example the Armored Cruiser Wave) but these are all models which are in the game that I just bend to my will so to say.
As for the energy shooting around: valid point of yours however one can always design the visuals in such a way that they are not disturbing (like the power generators in minerals vs medivac healing beam).
BTW: I just released a major update. I need some people to play the game on higher difficulties with Raynor's Raiders to test everything longterm wise.
You buffed the BCs Range (and a bit of the damage ?). I think it may be fine now as i was already experimenting if it may be better to mass power gatlings with laser cannons and bulldogs than to build BC and now you are able to properly focus fire some mobs that are far away because of the same range of both weapons.
Did you buff Bulldog? I guess so (atkspeed?), because now it makes sense for me to build it. Maybe it was because of my bad placing but the Cannon was rotating more than shooting before the buff.
And i guess you nerfed the huge stampede of Queens at the 2nd Boss Level. It was quite hard before sometimes and i mostly managed it on Asian with a well placed nuke but now i didnt even needed it.
I did quit the game at the Ultralisks because of my friend timing out and i didnt want to play alone but i didnt lose a life so far. Will try another run tomorrow but i think the hardest part will be the last minion wave of the boss where the heavy thors spawn and all is flying around and you have no idea what to focus :D
Oh well, and which wave i found really hard (maybe you changed it) is the blink stalker wave with the zombieversion of the spores still running in your maze. How many runs over the checkpoints do they do? Its quite difficult to focus fire anything there so you just have to hope that this shit you build will work :)
Furthermore you did change some of the costs i recognized like the Ubergenerator and stuff. I dont know if it was necessary but i guess you have the data and opinions of multiple people that proves it.
Do you have in mind to lower the cost or change the way the supply thing works? 20 SP is huuge in my mind. It doesnt fit as a dump for SP because its only 1 supply every 2 wave and if you rush early on it you are missing to important upgrades. In my mind you should either lower it to a maximum of 15 oder even lower or maybe add 2 supply every 3 waves or something like that. As of now it is the most unusable upgrade in the game.
What were your other changes? Maybe you could add a changelog to the F12-Helpfile or maybe put the latest changes in the loading screen so everyone knows what has changed.
I guess thats it what i had in mind. If i remember more i will edit this post.
PS: Will Shakurs get some fancy looking or something in this direction in the future? My friend is crying because my tower look awesome and his just look normal :P
My friend is crying because my tower look awesome and his just look normal :P
Lawl :) Well tell him to make a reasonable proposal and I see if it can be implemented. I had some problems with the ForceField Maze Walls so I guess changeable optics will require some time.
The reasoning behind changing so many of the costs/dmgstats for Raynor's Raiders is/was that I want every tower to be usefull and there should always be multiple ways to solve problems.
As for the queens: I haven't changed them in a while :) In fact the boss itself was made harder mutliple times and only the queen's health reduced slightly, but that was weeks ago. Maybe your build and the overall balance of the races improved :)
As for the 20 supply upgrade: it has its uses. For example you need it in order to build frickn long mazes (1100 length without adventure mode). One then skips lancer+attackspeed aura and possibly even mineral interest and/or gas bonus.
However, I will add an instant +2(?) supply bonus for just getting it. Similar to the major gas bonus upgrade. You save for something big and you get rewarded instantly and in the long run.
Okay, i will tell him that he shall power up his brain to deliver some good ideas :)
Quote:
As for the queens: I haven't changed them in a while :) In fact the boss itself was made harder mutliple times and only the queen's health reduced slightly, but that was weeks ago. Maybe your build and the overall balance of the races improved :)
Hm, thats strange as i had these differences straight before the patch and after the patch. I can only guess its because i built the buffed Bulldog in a better spot and i noticed that he dealt 350k dmg just after the queen level (or maybe 2 levels? dunno anymore) while the power gatling accumulated about 1,5-2 mio dmg since lvl 1.
How many times do the Zombiesporecrawlers go through your maze? I guess its somewhat about 3 times?
Hi everyone,
the second race has been polished and is balanced. Due to some bugs in battle.net2 my popularity has sunken dramatically and it has become much harder to play testgames with random people. I have a good bunch of testplayers, but I need people who are completely new to the map because they will probably like/try/etc diffrent things than my battleweary testers.
Looking for this kind of feedback
Firstly, what I am specifically looking into at the moment is game difficulty in every aspect. How easy it is to get into the game? Did you beat the first boss leakfree on your first playthrough? How many tries did you need to beat the whole map on Normal difficulty? How far are you getting on higher difficulties? Of course any other type of feedback is welcome as well.
Secondly, I require more awesome screenshots for the project page! I added some new ones, but they s*ck in comparison to the old ones. I need new ones since I want the screenshots to reflect newer version of the interface etc. If you can send me some nice screenshots they will proably be added to the project page and you have a chance to appear in the Special Thanks on the loading screen.
How to get the map:
For EU go to Join Custom Game and select "Tower Defense". Icecrusher TD 2 (survivor faster) should be somewhere on the first page.
For all other realms: If you want to apply to publish the map on other servers than EU please contact me via email or sc2mapster.
Last but not least some general information taken from the official project page
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/icecrushertd/
Description
Solo mazing td (tower defense) map for 1 to 4 players. Set in a remote ice world and with nowhere to run you must fight the reckless onslaught of ever more trickier mob waves. Construct a nifty maze with wall pieces, towers, and traps to spell certain doom for your enemies.
Features
Noteworthy exceptions in mechanics
Screenshots
Some of these screenshots may be outdated since the map is still recieving a lot of content every day.
Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks
How to get started?
Build something like the following screenshot. Surround waypoint 1 and build an alley towards waypoint 5. Once you reached waypoint 5 surround it as well and leave an opening somwhere in the middle. Expand your maze from this hole on outwards. Keep spending your minerals on towers with a slight tendency towards Defense Platforms (dont' upgrade them yet!). As soon as you got enough gas research "Focus Fire" and then save for "Air Killer". After you have killed the first boss try to save up for an Immortal and a Storm Cannon. Place both in a way that they may reach air waves.
Advanced Tips or How to get past wave 10
If you are having troubles with the Pink Goliath wave try to incorporate more Soul Projectors and Storm Cannons into your build. At least one each before the wave starts. Research as many general and individual upgrade for Soul Projectors as possible.
If you are working with Traps make sure they hit air waves at least one time. If you manage to place them in a fashion that they hit air waves you might want to research "Burning Skies" and skip "Air Killer". This will make your build very gas efficient and still kill air waves without effort despite not having Air Killer researched.
Do you have any further plans to expand the content of the TD? Like third race, more/different waves, more gimmicks or abilites?
All in the making except more waves. I already cut a wave completely a few weeks ago since the game has become too long. I will not do anything to the map which could increases one game's duration any further.
Third race is coming when somone suggests a good idea for one :)
More Unlocks etc are already in the making, but I am taking my time since I don't just want to add boring stuff. Every unlock should be something fun or meaningful.
Well, i was not explicitely talking about more waves but about a different layout or something. Like Coop-TD. I love to play coop :) When we play your td we all quit the game always when someone gets killed so its somewhat of a team td for us anyway :D
Well, yea the Siegebreaker level was kinda boring compared to the waves around it, i agree with the removal.
By saying "you need suggestions", do you mean explicit towers or a general theme for the towers?
In Regards to the Unlocks. I, for myself, dont have the Pink Mega Probe activated. I just find it annoying :) I guess, you wont make any gamechanging Unlocks but just Gimmicks right?
The map has been planned and programmed as a solo td and the best thing you could hope for is that there will be a mode where enemies have more hitpoints and all leaks will move to your ally and only then it will cost you lives :) Something like that.
A general theme. A Zergish race seems obvious but it would also be kind of boring. It should have a major twist/change in gameplay at least.
Most people, including myself, love the pink mega probe, and you can always leave it turned off :)
Just added "Snow Camouflage" for Raynor's Raiders (level 41) and it looks awesome. That could be more in your style?
Okay, then i will live with that. The map is still awesome :)
General theme...hm, in my TD in warcraft i used a nature theme as my third race. But it should be pretty hard to do it in SC2 without a nearly complete set of custom models. Well, there are a couple of animals/neutral things running around on a normal map but i dont know if this is enough. In WC3 it was pretty easy as half of the game is more or less nature-based :D
As for a gameplay twist/change you could do something like a symbiosis. If you build the towers on their own they are a bit weak and they can only defend to a certain degree with a good maze.
But if you build them
1. next to each other so that each tower gets a particular upgrade,
2. build/research them in the command panel so that you say "i want to build tower A with the smbiosis with tower D" and then you get the icon or whatever to place it,
3. just give the opportunity to upgrade a tower into different towers. I dont mean it as a normal upgrade but as a special thing for what you might need an extra ressource (maybe fire for a fire symbiosis to deal extra dmg vs biological if you have problems with a certain biological wave like the redstone crabs)
then they get a "big" advantage.
Then you have to decide which symbiosis you should place where and certain symbiosises are stronger versus certain things. It would be obviously best if there are multiple building/techpaths to take. With this system you could have quite a diversity of strategies and a unique gameplay/techstuff.
Oh yea, snow camouflage sounds awesome :) I'll try it today.
edit: i think you can set the status of your map on this site on Release instead of beta by now ;)
edit2: was surprised that the tanks which are spawned by terratron have some shields. my friend was kinda shocked because he sold the 2-3 flame traps which he built for the thors but he barely managed it. I had nor problems since i had dat banshees with their emp-range of 500 million
hardenend shields for siege breakers is one idea currently implemented to make the siege breaker unit more interesting. still don't know what to change exactly for them but I was unhappy with their current state.
aaaannnd what are your thoughts towards my suggestions for the third race?
Jeah what you expect me to say? :D The concept is fine. I had something very similar in Icecrusher TD 1 for Warcraft 3. If you played GemTD, it also has a "symbiosis" system where you "melt" towers together from (random) pieces you get assigned. However, I didn't want to do something but do more like a spellcaster type of thing where towers would require energy delivered from other towers (similar to MINERALZ's towers) and/or most towers get auras with short ranges (3 building grids max) which affect everything around them but not themselves and possibly even stack.
However, this all does not fix the problem of not having a general (optical/lore) theme for the new race and as long as this not very fleshed out I cannot start the race (since optical effects, selection of attack animations and lore texts play a huge role in the development and as such you should set a "theme" right from the beginning and stick with it).
yea well, say that :D
so you already have a general idea of what the towers should do. It is just the optics that are missing. if you arent satisfied of a nature setting (which in my opinion fits for an aura based type of towers) then i cant help you with this :)
personally, i do not like the idea of energy delivered towers. imo there is too much other stuff besides the tower shooting^^
@minq1: Go
The problem is: I do not want to rely heavily on custom models. It would be nice to somehow utilize something which is already in SC2. Some models look odd or custom (for example the Armored Cruiser Wave) but these are all models which are in the game that I just bend to my will so to say.
As for the energy shooting around: valid point of yours however one can always design the visuals in such a way that they are not disturbing (like the power generators in minerals vs medivac healing beam).
BTW: I just released a major update. I need some people to play the game on higher difficulties with Raynor's Raiders to test everything longterm wise.
oh i forgot to mention that snow camouflage looks pretty sweet.
adventure mode seems to be pretty funny. so much rocks:D
will try out the balance in the evening, gotta go to work now
You buffed the BCs Range (and a bit of the damage ?). I think it may be fine now as i was already experimenting if it may be better to mass power gatlings with laser cannons and bulldogs than to build BC and now you are able to properly focus fire some mobs that are far away because of the same range of both weapons.
Did you buff Bulldog? I guess so (atkspeed?), because now it makes sense for me to build it. Maybe it was because of my bad placing but the Cannon was rotating more than shooting before the buff.
And i guess you nerfed the huge stampede of Queens at the 2nd Boss Level. It was quite hard before sometimes and i mostly managed it on Asian with a well placed nuke but now i didnt even needed it.
I did quit the game at the Ultralisks because of my friend timing out and i didnt want to play alone but i didnt lose a life so far. Will try another run tomorrow but i think the hardest part will be the last minion wave of the boss where the heavy thors spawn and all is flying around and you have no idea what to focus :D
Oh well, and which wave i found really hard (maybe you changed it) is the blink stalker wave with the zombieversion of the spores still running in your maze. How many runs over the checkpoints do they do? Its quite difficult to focus fire anything there so you just have to hope that this shit you build will work :)
Furthermore you did change some of the costs i recognized like the Ubergenerator and stuff. I dont know if it was necessary but i guess you have the data and opinions of multiple people that proves it.
Do you have in mind to lower the cost or change the way the supply thing works? 20 SP is huuge in my mind. It doesnt fit as a dump for SP because its only 1 supply every 2 wave and if you rush early on it you are missing to important upgrades. In my mind you should either lower it to a maximum of 15 oder even lower or maybe add 2 supply every 3 waves or something like that. As of now it is the most unusable upgrade in the game.
What were your other changes? Maybe you could add a changelog to the F12-Helpfile or maybe put the latest changes in the loading screen so everyone knows what has changed.
I guess thats it what i had in mind. If i remember more i will edit this post.
PS: Will Shakurs get some fancy looking or something in this direction in the future? My friend is crying because my tower look awesome and his just look normal :P
Lawl :) Well tell him to make a reasonable proposal and I see if it can be implemented. I had some problems with the ForceField Maze Walls so I guess changeable optics will require some time.
The reasoning behind changing so many of the costs/dmgstats for Raynor's Raiders is/was that I want every tower to be usefull and there should always be multiple ways to solve problems.
As for the queens: I haven't changed them in a while :) In fact the boss itself was made harder mutliple times and only the queen's health reduced slightly, but that was weeks ago. Maybe your build and the overall balance of the races improved :)
As for the 20 supply upgrade: it has its uses. For example you need it in order to build frickn long mazes (1100 length without adventure mode). One then skips lancer+attackspeed aura and possibly even mineral interest and/or gas bonus. However, I will add an instant +2(?) supply bonus for just getting it. Similar to the major gas bonus upgrade. You save for something big and you get rewarded instantly and in the long run.
Okay, i will tell him that he shall power up his brain to deliver some good ideas :)
Hm, thats strange as i had these differences straight before the patch and after the patch. I can only guess its because i built the buffed Bulldog in a better spot and i noticed that he dealt 350k dmg just after the queen level (or maybe 2 levels? dunno anymore) while the power gatling accumulated about 1,5-2 mio dmg since lvl 1.
How many times do the Zombiesporecrawlers go through your maze? I guess its somewhat about 3 times?
r you have killed the first boss try to save up for a
Post screenshots even if they are out dated, is good to show the progress of your map.
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