In the end, replayability is what keeps a map on top; above all else. Which is why so many poorly made maps stay on top. Replayability takes charge over good graphics and an interesting story.
This was the best TD i've played on sc2 so far, the only TD I have ever played that had a true story to go along with it. No offense to Kara, I really liked your wc3 version of ele TD much better; the older edits moreso than the new. Ele TD speaks for itself with its staying power though.
On the note of blood towers and mobile towers; I wasnt really thinking about either of them in terms of an economy. In fact; in secret 4X; if you want to make it past the battlecruiser level; you cannot focus on economy at all. you can get maybe 3, tops, party cannons; because they can be turned back into slow towers for boss levels.
Blood towers arent simply "not a good choice" for the secret difficulties; but if you try to use them, you will lose fast. They dont deal enough damage to actually score kills based on more than just luck. Maxed out at 120% damage power or whatever you call it; they are equal to target painters with zero upgrades; they are about the same as chaosfire towers. A fully upgraded spit fire or homing missile is better than a blood tower with max energy and all upgrades. Also; damage upgrades to it (from your upgrade buildings or crystals) do not amplify the amplified damage; so when it comes to synergising, they are lacking compared to other towers. Corruption towers start off better; as do annihilation towers.
On easy difficulties, you can win easily using any tower set up; as long as you have some notion of how the game plays. If people are complaining on easy that blood towers deal too much damage; tell them to play overkill mode.
Mobile towers I am not too-too against; they just are not useful on harder difficulties; and to spend 15 minerals to unlock them is impossible to come up with. The kill bonus is too impracticable; it isnt a tower you could spam; or a tower you could even rely on as your main type of damage. I have tried it on overkill, and on secret X4. Neither of its upgrades are worth their points; and its best possible use is to manually command it to attack bosses; while you spam missile towers for minerals; or crossfire towers for admission upgrades. Because its best use is for honing in on a boss to get that extra damage in; they arent worth having more than 1 of. Compared to the other towers, which work well in groups; the more of these you have, the more DPS you will slowly lose out on as monsters die off.
A "maybe" problem I have encountered on secret X4. the thor dropship level; I have never not leaked that level. and it isn't even close, I only ever get 1-2 kills. I can go up until that point without leaking, then I lose half of my lives there; and dont leak again until the battlecruiser. This has been pretty consistent. The easiest solution, if you want to alter as little as possible; lower them to take away less lives; 7 each hurtsssss. To balance it with the rest of the levels; lower their base HP by 5%. Im sure there would still be leaks; but maybe not all of them; taking away most of my valuable lives.
Lowered Blood Towers from 35% > 140% (175% with upgrade) to 30% > 120% (150% with upgrade). A NOTE: I'm not sure about this change, but I have heard a lot from people believing the Blood Towers to be overpowered. Please let me know if you disagree with this nerf.
I think blood towers are underpowered on the harder difficulties. It's got the worst appeal/cost ratio in the game. This means, I won't ever focus on them early on since it'll be horrible economy wise. But then, I can't get them later on, because though they'd be good damage wise if they had max kills, they obviously won't have any kills (though this can sort of be remedied with aux towers). On top, none of their special abilities have anything that helps economy wise (+admission, +spectator, +mineral). In my opinion, it is THE worst tower in the game. Most people complaining about the blood towers (I feel) are the ones that haven't tried the harder difficulties and are just saying a couple bloods will coast you through easy or normal. I'd like to see a strategy that makes good use of them break 1mil on overkill.
I will second this statement. they may have been super strong on lower difficulties; but as you go up, they get arguably weaker; and offer none of the nice side effects other tower types may. I have beaten the game on OVERKILL with maybe; 10 DIFFERENT tower combinations; one of which was based on blood towers. If you use AUX towers to link them; and get their kills up fast; on 4 of them.. they will carry you through the entire game. Sure. On easy and normal, their damage is insane, and they level up fast. However; you can use any tower strat on easy and win. You can use almost any tower strat on overkill and win. Overkill is what will show you the difference in tower types; how they stack up.
Blood and the flying robots are the only 2 tower types i will never use for any reason. Chaos works great on Secret X4 difficulty; but isnt needed on any other. Aux works decently well on overkill and secret X2 (it is iffy on X4, but everything if iffy on X4)
Blood tower suggestion:
Set the values to how they used to be; giving it a 5% base damage boost.
Set the increased damage part to a % chance; say, 50%
Set the increased max energy to 25 higher than its current boost
this will make the tower start out 5% stronger; but take 50% more time to level them up. It will make them more of an all-game strat; without that fast-hax payoff where you can have a tower that 3 shots a boss on round 20; but by round 40; can be your pride-and-joy, and pull you through the tougher levels; if you have a maze based on blood towers.
Flying Tower Suggestion:
Allow them to all attack the same target; but lower their move speed by 40-50%; and include a movement speed bonus in their 3 vespean upgrade that sets it to its current value. Or; make their 3 vespean upgrade allow them to attack the same target; and lower their 2 vespean upgrade to a 10% speed boost.
Also, if anyone manages to get past level 37 on Secret X4; post here, I am interested to see who is beating me.
Just wondering; did you alter the rate of mineral drops overall? They seem much lower.
Has anyone BEATEN level 30 on 4X Secret Difficulty? I made it up to the point with minimal leaks; then leaked the first 2 bosses and some of their units.
As a comparison; the Protoss Mothership had MORE life than Future Lester does on Overkill mode.
Side note; the terran boss does not have increased HP on various difficulty levels.
Other side note: Can units have over 1 million HP? Based on my off-hand calculations; future Lester will break the 1 million mark on this mode.
(Not so buggy) - Inspector has dropped minerals for me 3 times.
On the brood lord level; the randomly flying things take away lives; like... a lot of them. I lost 20 lives from them randomly flying backwards into my "exit".
If you build your first upgrade center the second you get the minerals for it; the text will forever stay in the middle of your base; telling you to build an upgrade center.
The brood lord hasn't sent for me in the past 3 games (since yesterday morning) He just stands there and eventually explodes. In all of these games I have used splitter towers; if this could somehow cause it; I havent tested it without using them.
The AoE splash slow towers (Immortals) their 3 vespean upgrade says on it 10%; but when you buy it, the text changes to 5%.
Balance note: The Gift Shop is by far the worst structure in the game. The bonus income is almost negligible compared to any other way of gaining income. A lot of the other structures indirectly give you more income; while providing other benefits.
This should count for something, eh? Not quite a million points; but 31 support towers and every upgrade of every building; technically, had I randomed the same upgrades; I would have broken 1 million. After all your nerfs; there are still funny ways to hit the 1 million mark ^_^
Just some bugs I have found, minor things mostly; but one is a bit bad.
The intro sometimes plays twice at once; all text pops up twice. No idea what may have caused it, but it happened.
The broodlord refused to walk. It sat there until the timer was up; then exploded and cost everyone 25% of their lives.
When tower debuffs are applied; if you build a tower right after it is applied; you have a solid 3-4 seconds without a debuff on that tower. With free selling, this makes some challenges easy.
On one of the "final" levels; I forget which stage; without leaking I was given the full +5 range award from the research that grants that; however my flying defense drone still had the -3 range debuff from darkness (after the dark levels)
Also, just curious; is it technically possible to hit 1 million? Ive beaten it on the hardest difficulty, random mode; I had 300+ spectators by round 10, and 2000+ for well over half of the game; and still came up 150k short; I leaked maybe 5 units all game. That just seems like such a huge gap to make up from income alone. Really curious to see how anyone may have overcome such a huge gap.
Just imagine if YouTD could be remade on sc2...
In the end, replayability is what keeps a map on top; above all else. Which is why so many poorly made maps stay on top. Replayability takes charge over good graphics and an interesting story.
This was the best TD i've played on sc2 so far, the only TD I have ever played that had a true story to go along with it. No offense to Kara, I really liked your wc3 version of ele TD much better; the older edits moreso than the new. Ele TD speaks for itself with its staying power though.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
On the note of blood towers and mobile towers; I wasnt really thinking about either of them in terms of an economy. In fact; in secret 4X; if you want to make it past the battlecruiser level; you cannot focus on economy at all. you can get maybe 3, tops, party cannons; because they can be turned back into slow towers for boss levels.
Blood towers arent simply "not a good choice" for the secret difficulties; but if you try to use them, you will lose fast. They dont deal enough damage to actually score kills based on more than just luck. Maxed out at 120% damage power or whatever you call it; they are equal to target painters with zero upgrades; they are about the same as chaosfire towers. A fully upgraded spit fire or homing missile is better than a blood tower with max energy and all upgrades. Also; damage upgrades to it (from your upgrade buildings or crystals) do not amplify the amplified damage; so when it comes to synergising, they are lacking compared to other towers. Corruption towers start off better; as do annihilation towers.
On easy difficulties, you can win easily using any tower set up; as long as you have some notion of how the game plays. If people are complaining on easy that blood towers deal too much damage; tell them to play overkill mode.
Mobile towers I am not too-too against; they just are not useful on harder difficulties; and to spend 15 minerals to unlock them is impossible to come up with. The kill bonus is too impracticable; it isnt a tower you could spam; or a tower you could even rely on as your main type of damage. I have tried it on overkill, and on secret X4. Neither of its upgrades are worth their points; and its best possible use is to manually command it to attack bosses; while you spam missile towers for minerals; or crossfire towers for admission upgrades. Because its best use is for honing in on a boss to get that extra damage in; they arent worth having more than 1 of. Compared to the other towers, which work well in groups; the more of these you have, the more DPS you will slowly lose out on as monsters die off.
A "maybe" problem I have encountered on secret X4. the thor dropship level; I have never not leaked that level. and it isn't even close, I only ever get 1-2 kills. I can go up until that point without leaking, then I lose half of my lives there; and dont leak again until the battlecruiser. This has been pretty consistent. The easiest solution, if you want to alter as little as possible; lower them to take away less lives; 7 each hurtsssss. To balance it with the rest of the levels; lower their base HP by 5%. Im sure there would still be leaks; but maybe not all of them; taking away most of my valuable lives.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Quote from FrostyM288:
Quote from SkrowFunk: Go
Lowered Blood Towers from 35% > 140% (175% with upgrade) to 30% > 120% (150% with upgrade). A NOTE: I'm not sure about this change, but I have heard a lot from people believing the Blood Towers to be overpowered. Please let me know if you disagree with this nerf.
I think blood towers are underpowered on the harder difficulties. It's got the worst appeal/cost ratio in the game. This means, I won't ever focus on them early on since it'll be horrible economy wise. But then, I can't get them later on, because though they'd be good damage wise if they had max kills, they obviously won't have any kills (though this can sort of be remedied with aux towers). On top, none of their special abilities have anything that helps economy wise (+admission, +spectator, +mineral). In my opinion, it is THE worst tower in the game. Most people complaining about the blood towers (I feel) are the ones that haven't tried the harder difficulties and are just saying a couple bloods will coast you through easy or normal. I'd like to see a strategy that makes good use of them break 1mil on overkill.
I will second this statement. they may have been super strong on lower difficulties; but as you go up, they get arguably weaker; and offer none of the nice side effects other tower types may. I have beaten the game on OVERKILL with maybe; 10 DIFFERENT tower combinations; one of which was based on blood towers. If you use AUX towers to link them; and get their kills up fast; on 4 of them.. they will carry you through the entire game. Sure. On easy and normal, their damage is insane, and they level up fast. However; you can use any tower strat on easy and win. You can use almost any tower strat on overkill and win. Overkill is what will show you the difference in tower types; how they stack up.
Blood and the flying robots are the only 2 tower types i will never use for any reason. Chaos works great on Secret X4 difficulty; but isnt needed on any other. Aux works decently well on overkill and secret X2 (it is iffy on X4, but everything if iffy on X4)
Blood tower suggestion:
Set the values to how they used to be; giving it a 5% base damage boost.
Set the increased damage part to a % chance; say, 50%
Set the increased max energy to 25 higher than its current boost
this will make the tower start out 5% stronger; but take 50% more time to level them up. It will make them more of an all-game strat; without that fast-hax payoff where you can have a tower that 3 shots a boss on round 20; but by round 40; can be your pride-and-joy, and pull you through the tougher levels; if you have a maze based on blood towers.
Flying Tower Suggestion:
Allow them to all attack the same target; but lower their move speed by 40-50%; and include a movement speed bonus in their 3 vespean upgrade that sets it to its current value. Or; make their 3 vespean upgrade allow them to attack the same target; and lower their 2 vespean upgrade to a 10% speed boost.
Also, if anyone manages to get past level 37 on Secret X4; post here, I am interested to see who is beating me.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Just wondering; did you alter the rate of mineral drops overall? They seem much lower.
Has anyone BEATEN level 30 on 4X Secret Difficulty? I made it up to the point with minimal leaks; then leaked the first 2 bosses and some of their units.
As a comparison; the Protoss Mothership had MORE life than Future Lester does on Overkill mode.
Side note; the terran boss does not have increased HP on various difficulty levels.
Other side note: Can units have over 1 million HP? Based on my off-hand calculations; future Lester will break the 1 million mark on this mode.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
More bugs:
(Not so buggy) - Inspector has dropped minerals for me 3 times.
On the brood lord level; the randomly flying things take away lives; like... a lot of them. I lost 20 lives from them randomly flying backwards into my "exit".
If you build your first upgrade center the second you get the minerals for it; the text will forever stay in the middle of your base; telling you to build an upgrade center.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
2 more things I have noticed:
The brood lord hasn't sent for me in the past 3 games (since yesterday morning) He just stands there and eventually explodes. In all of these games I have used splitter towers; if this could somehow cause it; I havent tested it without using them.
The AoE splash slow towers (Immortals) their 3 vespean upgrade says on it 10%; but when you buy it, the text changes to 5%.
Balance note: The Gift Shop is by far the worst structure in the game. The bonus income is almost negligible compared to any other way of gaining income. A lot of the other structures indirectly give you more income; while providing other benefits.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
This should count for something, eh? Not quite a million points; but 31 support towers and every upgrade of every building; technically, had I randomed the same upgrades; I would have broken 1 million. After all your nerfs; there are still funny ways to hit the 1 million mark ^_^
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Just some bugs I have found, minor things mostly; but one is a bit bad.
The intro sometimes plays twice at once; all text pops up twice. No idea what may have caused it, but it happened.
The broodlord refused to walk. It sat there until the timer was up; then exploded and cost everyone 25% of their lives.
When tower debuffs are applied; if you build a tower right after it is applied; you have a solid 3-4 seconds without a debuff on that tower. With free selling, this makes some challenges easy.
On one of the "final" levels; I forget which stage; without leaking I was given the full +5 range award from the research that grants that; however my flying defense drone still had the -3 range debuff from darkness (after the dark levels)
Also, just curious; is it technically possible to hit 1 million? Ive beaten it on the hardest difficulty, random mode; I had 300+ spectators by round 10, and 2000+ for well over half of the game; and still came up 150k short; I leaked maybe 5 units all game. That just seems like such a huge gap to make up from income alone. Really curious to see how anyone may have overcome such a huge gap.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418