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alt-tabbing out of the game in the middle of the spawn also causes a break and clumping of some sort.. and this is worse when it comes to undead.. those that revive in the middle of other creeps..

First off. welcome to the forums.. in VE mode i think players have gone 10k plus.. VH record stands at 2k plus.. check the great ronald hunt in strategy..

@jolin012: you can join.. i wouldn't be starting so fast so you can draft when you return.. @kirby: draft is your game mode of choice now? the challenge of draft with restricted towers and elements.. pick can be boring unless maybe completing all 22 builds or trying some fancy show-off build..

Of course.. but first you'll have to find 3 other drafters... heh..

The 2nd draft (1st beta draft) has concluded with kirby taking the draft (again)... Anyone interested/game for draft #3? Post your nick here!

Draft results: position player leaks time net ronalds 1st: kirby 0 47.45 148097 59 2nd:lesher 17 52.30 114603 22 3rd:kaini 45 53.33 79978 5 4th:dev 50 38.03 12524 0 (schooled at 41) 2beta_kirby.w3g 2beta_lesher3.w3g 2beta_kaini.w3g 2beta_dev.w3g

it requires micro to be effective.. without mirco, the damage isn't that high.. long range is also slow in competitive multiplayer.. the restrictions of the forum draft makes certain towers more effective than they are in normal builds.. with less towers, you can afford to micro the impulses all the time as compared to say random mode games where there probably a lot more stuff going on..

The draft is closed! everyone has submitted their replays (some more than 1).. so no further submission will be entertained.. results will be out shortly (although you probably know your place already)..

you missed out one point which kaini brough up.. you can random extra essence if you have a tier3 elemental already summoned. When the game tries to summon that element, it gives an essence instead. so you can have 3 pures in a rnd game..

GMT +8 weekdays: 1800 to 2200 weekends: i stay in IRC 24/7.. most of my balance stuff is all in my build project thread.. for those who review the full tower lists and the replays.. and no one apart from cisz has commented on the replays.. of all the misplays..

IRC is good to discuss balance as it's easier to defend points and raise examples clarify points of view.. the main issue is meeting up due to international timezones.. large walls of balance text are not processed well by reading the posts... full tower lists take a long time to prepare and are not really read, processed and the balance changes made. and few if any actually post counter-arguments.. individual tower balance is difficult to put into a post, covering all play situations. anything more than a short summary would not be read by almost all. at least in irc one situation can be raised, point defended then move on to cover another aspect. and my summoning of a certain player usually fails..

Post the replay on the forums for all to review.. Replay suffices to back up any claim of challenge wins or completing the game in unconventioal ways.. Building crappy towers like filling the map with elemental arrows or basic elemental towers doesn't complete VH.. 9000 ronalds with 3 elements is probably doable in VE...

All 4 have submitted their replays.. there's still under 24hrs for anyone who replays and obtains a better score to replace the submitted replay..

nice one.. it's a good start although it's pretty easy to get high ronald counts in lower difficulties if you have some idea of how to play well.. but VH is a different story.. Why not try the build in maybe normal or VH? besides, periodics totally own 4.0pb..

the middle number now stands at 1004 at the time of this post..

first lvl2 at 25 (used to be 20 but was changed after discussions in restricted forums/IRC). first lvl3 at 45. interest afaik can be randomed anytime but tends to be more towards mid-game. we had a discussion on this somewhere in dev/beta forums.. that random was too 'difficult' in terms of early higher-tier elementals, too much interest randomed and how to have less randOOmed games..

maybe not for 4.0 but we should keep this in mind for a secondary release after the 4.0 goes public.. Element TD 4.0 Team survivor.. as a new map.. i would prefer if this goes something like burb td. everyone has a spawn but the creeps are so strong that each player can kill say maybe the first 2 or 3 or deal like 1/6 damage to every creep. SD should have a few extra lumber compared to single player.. the whole point is teamwork so there should be some extra lumber to provide combinations not possible in single player but should not be too overpowered. this can be balanced by say stronger creeps. ideas to develop on.. this is something to work on maybe after 4.0 release..

Overall balance is better than 4.0pb. All 15 4-ele builds can be completed now when i failed 3 duing my b5 onwards build project.. i'm left with 3 which i should finish this weekend. After which i'll look at the 5 and 6-ele builds. full report will follow after all 22 are completed 4-ele build balance , armour reduction builds are stronger than the slowing builds. No-slow builds are also strong, some are even easier than slowing builds to complete. The double aoe slow builds are weaker than 4.0pb, and can be harder to noleak than some of the other builds. as of b15, ice, poison, flame were the overpowered towers. Quark maybe on the weaker side. The rest of the duals can be considered balanced. triples.. Corrosion is overpowered. zealot, hail and laser may need a damage increase. Flamethrower perhaps slightly too strong.

Agreed. The point is it forces players to plan their builds for mechanical. the use of single-target towers and long range are some of the ways.. it would defeat the purpose of having mechanical creeps if the shield could be countered.

Replay or it didn't happen.. as the 'rules' of beta leads go...

b15.. play in the version the draft started in.. all replay should be b15 only.. or risk dq for wrong version.. heh..

yes.. forum activity increased significantly after 4.0pb.. but activity goes down whenever karawasa decides to go MIA (missing in action).. so we should all fix a date and time and play a fullhouse (draft?) multiplayer game.. heh.. or a 'team' ronald hunt.. someone plays VE killing 10000, normal killing 1000, and VH killing 400.. that'll be fun.. and make sure all players micro to kill the exact number.

apparently w3g files (replays) can't be attached.. so this doesn't work for my draft..

i shall try the combinations with my elemental types damage build list and see which gives the most 'balanced' result.. and now i see the greater significance of the 3-ele builds balancing in elemental damage.. in 4 ele builds with 3elements maxed out giving 3 tier3 duals. for my build project i ran into some of those problems where the key duals all had one damage type with no 'decent' cover, leading to mass leaks against weakness. some of the original changes were made based on the list in that thread.. switching elements of towers at this stage probably disrupts the balance too much.. triple switching can lead to some problems but probably can be balanced out against the lists..

you more or less have the idea for the build.. now go back and review the replay and find out what you leaked.. what waves you need to cover, by most probably spamming 24+ elemental arrows.. it's more likely the points where you are saving gold for a key upgrade. or points where you decided to build an extra tower for extra damage where elemental arrows would have done the job better and allowed upgrade to higher tiers the next wave.. never underestimate spamming 24+ elemental arrows (of course don't use weakness..heh).. this draft isn't difficult and no leak is very possible...