Karawasa

Tested it on a fast level during a straight part of the path, and the creeps landed right in sync(i.e. no bug).

The problem with race selection is that it will be lost on 99% of players. They will go with whatever the default selection is. Unfortunately it cannot be changed from within the game.

These are all the ATTACK range values for the towers in the game. Hope this helps in distributing ranges for more varied gameplay. Single: -Light = 1500 -Darkness = 1500 -Water = 700 -Fire = 500 -Nature = 900 -Earth = 700 -PTOTE = 900 Dual: -Gunpowder = 1500 -Magic = 900 -Trickery = 700 -Disease = 700 -Poison = 900 -Blacksmith = 700 -Quark = 500 -Mushroom = 900 -Hydro = 700 -Electricity = 900 -Flame = 700 -Kindle = 700 -Life = 700 -Ice = 900 -Well = 700 Triple: -Flamethrower = 700 -Laser = 700 -Roots = 700 -Muck = 700 -Jinx = 700 -Voodoo = 900 -Corrosion = 900 -Oblivion = 900(minion) -Hail = 900 -Drowning = 700 -Gold = 700 -Quaker = 700 -Zealot = 700 -Enchantment = 900 -Polar = 900 -Flesh = 700 -Nova = 700 -Storm = 700 -Impulse = 1500 -Tidal = 700

500/900/1500? That is an interesting perspective on 500 range. If we keep it though, we should make it more prevalent among the towers. Perhaps then 700 is the range to axe.

This only happens once in a blue moon, but Cisz I disagree with you. Here are the PB values for Water and Earth: You will notice small splash is just about on par with the PB Water. Large splash is actually a nerfed version of the PB Earth. What we basically have done is streamlined the full/half damage parts taking into consideration creep spacing, and eliminated the 10% part. The small and large splash values are balanced without considering slows. If our calculations are right(and some simple testing will confirm), then splash damage should be on par with ST damage(like with cannon/arrow). You point out that splash gets stronger with slow, but I counter with the fact that splash sucks vs bosses and also when creeps are missing(i.e. if there are only 2 creeps instead of 3 for small splash...).

I think it would be more natural if they matched their attack range. Thus a change from 750 to 700.

Do you guys feel there is enough difference between 700 and 900 range? In certain placements it can make a difference, but in others the range is negligible. I'd like to see these two feel more different like how 1500 contrasts with the other two so strongly.

Fast creeps are about 168 distance apart instead of the normal 135. This means that for small splash there is really no difference. Large splash however takes a hit because the creeps are too spread out for its full damage range. The above is assuming no slow/clumping.

There are only a few 500 range towers, which leads me to ask... Should we just get rid of 500 range? We could have 700 be considered short, 900(or modified) medium, and 1500(or modified) long.

Playing with the countdown timer is probably the easiest and least intrusive way of fixing this problem. How about 5/10/15/20/25 VH-VE? We also do not have to follow a static change per difficulty level. We could play around with something like: 4/9/15/22/30

I'd like to propose something myself. We would have two different splashes. They would be: Small: -100 Full -200 Half Large: -150 Full -300 Half The difference is actually quite large between these two. With 100 damage, and 135 space between creeps (non-fast level) we have(each value being damage to a specific creep): 50 100 50 - Small 50 100 100 100 50 - Large So small splash would basically double damage, and large splash would quadruple it. What do you guys think?

We currently have four different tower ranges in the game among the elemental towers. They are of course 500/700/900/1500. I'd like to examine this aspect of the game. To help with this, here is a handy picture: Thoughts?

Allow me to clarify... The map will be ~1 MB for 4.0 because of the return of the custom loadscreen. The custom UI adds about 500 KB putting 4.0 at ~1.5 MB if we include it. For reference DotA is ~3 MB and the limit is 4 MB.

Current: Alternative: Custom: For those left wondering, the custom one does add to the size of the map. Without a custom UI 4.0 will be ~1MB and with it would end up being ~1.5MB. Ultimately we must decide whether it adds enough to the experience to justify the space. Thoughts?

1. Really? I know somebody who has got $$$ in SM. (Public Beta) 3, 4. There is a limit? I've got a F3 in around 30... 1. Bug in PB allows for more than 2 interest in SR/TR. 3.4. Should be, 20/40.

After a few hours with the new tools I came to some surprising conclusions. I used position 5 for the most part, and also a time period of 23 seconds. I don't claim this is a perfect testing condition by any means. So instead of listing all the numbers, I will simply propose the conclusions I came to for balance. I certainly encourage you guys to disagree. Feel free to make good use of the tools to prove a point. I will say though that it will probably be best to hold off on any across the board testing until B13. Passed: -Magic -Poison -Mushroom -Hydro -Electricity(B13 values) -Jinx -Gold -Zealot -Tidal -Impulse Not on the list but... -Muck -Enchantment -Polar -Voodoo -Blacksmith -Well -Trickery Nerf: -Gunpowder from 150 to 125 -Quark from 75 levels to 100(same bonus at max level) -Flame from 300 back to 250 -Kindle from 200 back to 150 -Ice from 300 to 250 -Oblivion from 3000 to 2500 -Hail from 620 to 500 -Quaker from 3000(ability) to 2500(ability) Not on the list but... -Nova from 1125 to 750 -Roots from 750 to 500 -Storm from 750 to 500 (also eliminate body blocking, but increase speed) -Corrosion from 1000 to 750 Buff: -Life from 1000 to 1250 -Flamethrower from 250(Water radius) splash to 350(Earth radius) -Laser from 2170 to 2480 Untested: -Disease -Drowning -Flesh Golem I also came up with the following values(DPS before armor kicks in, i.e. pure) for the amped single element towers: -Light = 440 -Darkness = 418 -Water = 430 -Fire = 661 -Nature = 530 -Earth = 701 As you can see Earth is clearly ahead of the pack. Light and Darkness should be less than the target 525 because of range difference. The same applies for Nature, but the opposite for Fire. Earth and Water should end up close to 525(as they have the standard range). Buff Water. Nerf Fire slightly. Nerf Earth. Nerf Nature slightly. Light/Darkness? Finally note that the target DPS is exactly that, a target. Naturally towers that require micro or are situational should reward the player with above average DPS if used properly. This is a fine balance to walk, and will require the "feel" element beyond simply math to get right. PS: I have a feeling creep hp will need to be reverted...

Correction, Hail is 6(active)/3(rest).

Yes, you have. Hail now works on a 3(active)/6(rest) scale like Magic/Mushroom.

A very good start to a complex problem, thanks Kaini. Although we just talked about this on IRC, everyone else should know how splash works in the game currently: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1053.

The cannons have 250 AoE, thus they are like Water Towers. All splash attacks in the game fall into one of these 3 categories. We can change any aspect. There doesn't have to be the full/half/partial damage thing, nor 3 different splashes. I'll be interested to see what you guys think.

We currently have three different splash ranges in the game. Would it be better to eliminate 1 or even 2 of them? Should there be more differences between them? Here is how they stack up: 250 - Water -100 range for full damage -175 range for half damage -250 range for 1/10th damage 300 - Fire -150 range for full damage -225 range for half damage -300 range for 1/10th damage 350 - Earth -200 range for full damage -275 range for half damage -350 range for 1/10th damage Thoughts?

Yes, the values are for your standard tower. We will need to decide how big of a factor range and splash play, and reduce the values accordingly.

Hey Guys, We are making a lot of progress in several different areas of the game. While we should continue to explore these different aspects, I want to bring your attention to one we need to focus on along the way. This is of course the overall tower balance. We need to look at both the macro(recently receiving major changes) and the micro(plagued with imbalances that haven't been analyzed) of tower balance. I have recently added two tools that will be of immense help to us. After consideration, I have decided to expand these tools to be multiplayer compatible for B13. Along with that, I'll be posting the micro balance conclusions that can be gleaned from the macro balance rubric we recently changed to. Because higher tiers of towers use an exact multiple, we only need to balance the lower tiers to achieve success(on a micro level). Type Cost Rubric DPSG Rubric DPS Amped 175 3 525 Dual 1 500 3 1500 Triple 1 1517 4 6068 I believe we should focus on fixing the micro imbalances first. We can then test the builds overall, and make conclusions about the macro balance. Calculating how close each tower is to what it should be will be difficult. The two main issues will be AoE damage and how that is affected by slow/clumping, and also tower placement/range/time. If we test on a neutral creep characteristic and element, then after accounting for armor reduction we will have exact values. Here is a checklist where I can fill in the values we agree on for actual DPS. We can use this thread to discuss the values and such, but I'd like to use different threads for discussing what to do with specific towers. Notice that the "support" towers are not listed. Tower DPS Amped Light ? Amped Darkness ? Amped Water ? Amped Fire ? Amped Nature ? Amped Earth ? Gunpowder ? Magic ? Disease ? Poison ? Quark ? Mushroom ? Hydro ? Electricity ? Flame ? Kindle ? Life ? Ice ? Flamethrower ? Laser ? Jinx ? Oblivion ? Hail ? Drowning ? Gold ? Quaker ? Zealot ? Flesh Golem ? Impulse ? Tidal ?

Here is the tooltip: Transforms this golem into a link node. A link node will power up an attack every 0.5 seconds. Bonus damage added is equal to 2000, half of the 4000 base damage. Link nodes can be drawn upon from up to 700 range away. Bonus is exponential in growth based on number of links drawn from. Damage done is equal to Base + Bonus*#*1.05^# What parts are confusing? Anyone want to revise the tooltip?