Multiplayer issues in 4.2e

[electronX]

Greetings!

It is long time since I last posted on these forums, nice to see them renewed.

I see that you have greater plans with EleTD and as such, 4.2 is likely one of, or the last branch using War3.

(Seeing the amount of DotA games on Northrend-Europe, I don't think W3 is dead on its own.)

I was taking a huge break from EleTD and came back to play lately, and the last few days I spent a few hours online, playing thanks to GamersEdge bots.

I have some experiences now that concern me, and I think it's better to share them.

When playing alone, I usually pick hard. I'm not that awesome, I often lose the trail around the end of the forties, especially as I prefer random play.

(1) Playing online, most players choose the Very Easy difficulty. This would not be a real problem if they would be newbies, noobs, but often they aren't. As I felt ashamed to get annihilated around my usual levels, I am chosing Normal level now, which makes me more competitive. I feel the reasoning behind Normal is, that players try to pursue high Ronald and of course win the game, and easier modes by definition offer an advantage. I remember I voted for this system myself in the past in favour of allowing different skilled people to play together, yet now I feel its bad side.

(2) Very easy difficulty allow players to nuke every level down as a single pass around position 7, falling back to a long pass in case of some problems, like an immunity level. Chosing harder difficulties doesn't allow for such fast nuking, especially as easier levels allow for less towers early on, thus more money, which can be well spent on even more powerful towers later.

(3) The successful - and quite boring - nuking of the very easy players result in constant 20+ second wait times between levels. I see no way to pressure them.

(4) Probably as a result of 1-3, the new LFW (looking for work?) easymode build of version 4 is born: LN, life towers. Most pressuring players are successfully using life towers exclusively and very successfully. They tend to defeat waves just about the time when I kill my 3rd mob out of 30 at my position 4-5 placement. Life has an excellent range to patch placement 7 into a double pass location, which extended to 4, 5, 8, 2 is just pure awesome. A guy just before picked IIINLNLNLPP, ended up with a net worth of 800k, fully built his map with life towers, killed 300 and some Ronalds.

This altogether makes these games (the game instances) very boring, and disappointing. I would love to race for fun, improve to lessen the gap from the better players, but when I check their territory after my defeat it's always the same: Very Easy with Soul Catchers. Seeing how easy it is to "master" this game online, it lifts all my motivation to go again.

I saw that there are responses for all these points alone. Playing VE means you're a nab, Life isn't good for competitive play or Ronalds, but life proves it the other way around.

What do you think? Was this expected? Is there any potential treatment incoming?

EDIT: and one thing I consider a bug. If the host choses Short Mode and All Pick, it is practically impossible to go -random.

[Twilice]

It's a bit similar to what I wanted to tell here https://forums.eletd.com/The-point-of-Element-TD-t2020.html but in a different way.

I think the problem we have now is by no means boring/unused/useless/overpowered towers. It is the way you play the game itself. I think we should make it more strict in how you play it. But it might aswell be bad for never users (or good) it needs to be faster, with better re-play ability.

*A succesfull map we all know about is Dota, we have taken a few abilitys and made our own. It didn't really help. It's not the flashier part of Dota that made it popular it's the re-play ability. You can play it lots of times before it gets boring, the pace is quite fast. Still a match can be quite long.

I would say in order to "bring back" element td it needs a total overhaul of the gameplay like in 4.0 with support towers and such. But this time with the money and at different times.

*Since I always play random, this is for random then it would work different with picks duo to 75%/100% resell but still be similar.

First phase:

The first few levels should be like the standard "do it all over again" like any RTS game (I know it's a TD, but for me this was the thing that made it fun to play. We had this kind of play when we gathered a few that could actaully play)

Second phase:

Then later you should focus on your economics (interest farm) thus you should NOT need to use all your money. Exept if you face a element you are weak against, and maybe it's also mechanics. Then you should use all your gold to survive. Or you might get rushed by someone using all his money at a "fast" location. Then you must respond to this aswell.

Thirds phase:

Here you start to set up your "base defence" with some supportive towers toghether with some semi-permanent towers which you only sell to swap for another element, or another kombination. While you got some "extra towers" which you still farm for interest. The only different from phase two is that you got a more "steady" defence, you don't move around so much exept for some extra towers to get those nasty mech's who got past.

Fourth phase:

Here is when you spend about all your money to kill as much as you can. Both damage and supports.

**Dreamstate: In any normal singleplayer condition you should be able to get to ronalds fairly easy (if you got interest) but not with 50 lives. "harrasing" your opponents should have a pretty big impact. Selling and rebuilding at the early levels should be neccesary to get far (unless there is a special easy mode or something like that). Multiplayer should be fast paced and mistakes should be easy to make, and to fix. It should be hard to do a "perfect" game. Different elements have different "style", light might be better defencive wise, better versus bosses. Fire might be better at rushing since it's short range means it has a higher dps then other towers thus kills faster. But it might leak alot if not used in enough numbers.

THIS is already how single element towers work, but it should also be so with kombined element towers. (having this super ultra balance between support towers is not really fun, some elements like darkness might be better at amplifying the damage taken, while water is better at slowing.

Also there should be seperate multiple choises like "classic TD" which is like a normal, your on your own just trying to get to ronalds. (like most people tend to do now.... if the actaully play) and the "element TD" style which is the more competive multiplayer.

I hope I didn't miss something in that wall of text................................................

*summed up - needs more replayability.,

- Players don't really know how "element td" should really be played. They still go regular td style. It needs to "show" the players that it is a vs. td. Also it should have more impact that it used to have when we had our "inhouse" battles.

- Everything is to "neat and balanced" nothing is special anymore, you don't need to know any builds or what purpose the tower has. Only if it supports or damages.

- Even tough you did your best and play solo you might not get to the ronald stage. How are you then supposed to go to ronald stage versus another player. And even harder to beat with a no-leak or on a special harder mode. (How do you do that again?)

[holepercent]

in singleplayer, all pick 4/5/6-ele builds are playable to ronalds at a decent competitive speed.. -random is harder but it's never meant that every game can be completed.. randOOms are part of the game. in multiplayer randOOm, it's about making the best of the set against other players.

one possibility life tower is too 'strong' and lives are gained back as fast as they are lost. a decent impulse+tidal+well+nova+windstorm should be faster and put pressure on the slower life-tower based builds.

or even good players are playing very easy.. playing ve against vh is definately not balanced but how to solve this? the vh player is usually unable to put any pressure on the ve player. the ve player has too much gold and requires so few towers.

4.3 is in the works, with some new towers and a new modes for greater player interaction..

[Twilice]

But I want the standard modes more standardised. I don't want big bombs everywhere just to interact with other people.

*Why is random harder? It should give more profit since you will end upp with more gold.