WindStrike

While you'd be able to create a circular maze for them to go through, that takes up a lot of space, and they don't stay in that circle for very long. You get one circle pass and then they're on to the next part of the maze. Compared to many other mazes where you're able to actually fill in the circle and hit everything inside of it, it's pitiful. Add the fact that every creep has health regen and eventually moves at double speed and they're not going to stay in a circle for more than about 3 hits, whereas I can get more than that in the standard mode just by using the peninsulas. The old quark effect was that it hit everything inside of a 10 radius area. Not just orbs on the ends - literally everything inside that area. It was a little cheap for maze mode and maybe needed a little damage nerf for standard, but nothing compared to Vapor + Maze (which = haxorz if you make the maze correctly). Speaking of which, Vapor tower does not do just 15 DPS. When you stack two creeps in one spot, each creep is hit by 10 damage, and then it shoots an aftershock that does 5 damage for each creep nearby. So yes, two creeps does 15 damage to each one. Three creeps and it's 20 damage to each. 4 --> 25, 5 --> 30, 6 --> 35... and so on and so forth. When you get the slowing, it is easy to stack 10-15 such that each vapor is getting super amplified damage due to aftershock. "Celerity" (lol, no worries, I know multiple people that have called it Celery) is not very strong. If you're playing on Normal, every tower is going to seem overpowered. It's easy to win Normal on a handful of towers (cough, use flood and see for yourself). On very hard.... it's great for the early/middle rounds if placed properly, but otherwise it's nearly useless by the last 5 waves. I have seen this issue myself with Quark (old radius) where the orbs are clearly hitting the creeps, but their health isn't getting scratched. While I would prefer old Quark tower (as it's actually useful on maze... seriously, about the only way you can make that thing work right now is to build 4 circles w/ triple pass. And you'd only be able to get 4 of them total), I suppose an attempt to fix this issue to give it another shot may work. I'll check the replay out later, a little (very) sleep right now.

While I have yet to watch that replay (I just got my computer set up 30 minutes ago), I would like to submit proof of another issue with quark towers. Ayr and I did a maze mode match with random, and at wave 40, he dropped down 4 atom towers. That should have completely annihilated it - in fact, 2-3 of most Level 3 dual towers will kill wave 41-45. 3-4 atom towers barely even scratched it. See attached replay. Also, I note a certain creep bug with undead in maze mode - when they respawn at 50% health, they're not affected by the wave speed modifier. I request to have quark changed back to the old quark, as the new one (aka, old radius)... is just straight up hard to use, especially in maze mode. I could probably kill faster by spamming life and money towers. Element Tower Defense _7_.SC2Replay

Lol, I love how you keep buffing a certain tower that doesn't need to be buffed at all (cough, shrapnade). Ah well, it's all good. Speaking of which, it says it fires a bomb than splits into three bombs, and each bomb does 12 damage. Does the initial bomb also do damage, or is it just the three bombs that split off from it? Now that a certain tower on here got a certain change (won't say which one), I can do my tournament replay attempt. Even with the change, I'll probably be able to do what I intend to do still (on Hard), though I don't think it's possible anymore on Very Hard. Overall, good update man. Thanks.

Moar stuff: Make the explosion (not the line drive) on Ice Tower Full/Half, so I guess 2 AoE (Full) / 3.75 AoE (Half).The tooltip info for Ice Tower (the icon for when you're contemplating on upgrading to it) still says 12 range.Buff Radius back to 200 damage. Still haven't played around with it that much really, so... iffy here. And now for a change on Obliteration (suggestion): Rather than controlling when it reloads (when you mix with Trickery, its sub-support tower, that is nearly impossible to control), remove its reload ability and simply make it a slow-firing concentrated blast of doom. I know you keep the fire speed of everything in the game limited to .31, .66, 1 and 1.5, but what if this tower's uniqueness came from its extra slow firing rate? Keep its AoE and range the same, but make it 2 or 2.5 Fire Rate and amp its damage to compensate. I mean, it IS siege tank. As in, a SC1 style siege tank. Something like that.

Any ideas are accepted really. I dunno who will make the map... I just posted here cause well uhh... this is the best TD game I've played and this is the only SC2 map community I'm active in. Could try to convince Karawasa, no guarantees especially with him still continuing to refine EleTD and whatnot. Honestly, I'd wait till Heart of the Swarm is out before asking someone to make and develop it, because by then, the new map sharing system will have been out for a few months, and that could dramatically change how things currently are. If anyone else here is good at map making and would be willing to give a shot, go for it, but until that new system is out for a few months, we'll just continue with the general concept design fomulation of ideas and whatnot. Gold goblin idea would actually work pretty well, especially if there's something similar to interest abuse, aka selling your towers and rebuilding them. A little guy running between waves would provide incentive to keep your defenses. I'm suddenly thinking of Warcraft 3, lol. So a second resource in addition to the standard gold resource that's based more uhh... awards for doing specific things? That could be fun. Hah, here's an idea for a Tower Defense game in general (actually, this borrows off a map concept I had for Starcraft 1, one that I'd make in SC2 if I had the skills). A bunch of players start on a large map with creeps spawning constantly from the middle. You have a starting area at the edge of the map that has a building you must protect from the incoming creeps. Strategically, this is the best position on the map, but you only have the basic towers and it's not a large area, so with only that, you won't hold it for long. However, you can expand outwards and build towers in positions adjacent to any position you control. By capping and controlling a new area, you gain access to a new type of tower. Additionally, a defense mechanism building pops up for that area. The creeps then have to break through that defense before moving on, but keep in mind a new position will only cover one side, whereas creeps are coming in from multiple directions. The more areas you control, the larger area you have to defend, but the more tower types you gain. If a defense mechanism falls, all towers of that type will get a damage nerf (say, dealing half damage) until you take control of that area again. The closer you get to the middle, the stronger the tower you get (moreso by its ability, not necessarily its actual damage done). Of course, there are other players. You may have trouble expanding due to a player blocking your way on the other side. I suppose each area also provides a new offensive option, whether it's a global creep bonus or something player specific. You would not be able to target players that you can't see (aka, only the ones right next to you). Expanding into another player's area can grant you control of their positions, but that makes you potentially weaker to the oncoming waves and a bigger threat to other players that come in contact with you. Resources are acquired for killing creeps. Additionally, if a player dies with the creeps that killed him under the influence of an ability you used, you also get a good gold bonus. To win the game, you must reach the center, cap the zone that spawns the creeps, and then hold that zone for five minutes. While the spawn zone is under your control, you control the creeps the spawn, but there is still a defense mechanism for the middle, and the creeps that are spawned DO go after that. The control you get over the creeps only refers to the types of creeps that spawn (probably by toggle). They get stronger and stronger over time as well. Now if you're in the middle, that means that most other players in the game will have the ability to target you in some way and make the creeps super powered in your areas. More than likely, you'll lose some zones and some of your towers will weaken, hopefully with the intent that your defense mechanism will fall and someone else can cap it. Every time the defense mechanism in the middle falls, the time required to hold the middle falls by a minute until it drops to 1 minute cap time. Sound good? If you want, I can post my Conquests map design here as well, which is what this was based off of.

Just gave it a shot, it worked well too. However uhh... you may want to remove the explosion that happens every interest, lol. It'll confuse new players like crazy. If you could make the tail of it longer without increasing the size it takes up, that'd be cool.

Sweet, I'm in. A few questions though... Is it just the standard mode, or are maze, team (derp, solo), and hero modes viable as well?I kill the last creep of each wave around the top-right corner. Is that considered excessive interest abuse or is it valid?If another version of the game releases, are all previous replays sent invalidated or good to go? Looking forward to getting that mousepad... though I'll have troubles if maze is involved, lol.

I tried asking someone that didn't know what a Tower Wars map actually was. His answer ended up being the wrong answer for the current version, but it did bring a few new ideas to the table for a potential new map. Plus the few concepts we have right now... I'd say this might do something. I'm going to try and ask some more people that have little knowledge of Tower Wars and see what answers I get. EDIT: Some more quotes from random people I asked. Then I told this next guy the basic concept and flaws of the game. This is what I got. I'm getting some pretty good results, and that's just a few minutes of asking. I'll be sure to keep asking more people.

Lol, I should suggest double of my intended suggested levels for damage, you always seem to go halfway in-between. *runs* Alright, new plan. RAY TOWERS DO OVER 9000. *shot* Well, if the pathing dummy is say... a stream of light (take the light tower's attack for example) that's not physical but still follows the path, would that work? I still haven't found that old War3 TD map that had the dotted line on the path (which altered anytime you changed it), but when I do, I'll be sure to show it to you.

Alright, loaded up a game, set the settings to short and race and tried grabbing nature 1. The result? 1 HP, control of the unit was MINE, no way of attacking it, and it spawned at my elemental summoning center. Exact same issue in maze mode as well. Couldn't grab any other elements while I was at it. Anyhow, replay is attached, it's short... literally. Element Tower Defense _12_.SC2Replay

This isn't nearly as extensive as that giant list, but there's some things I've noticed recently that could use more buffs or alterations. Healing creeps are overpowered. The only single target that actually kills them things that 1-2 shot them. After that, they're pretty screwed against healing. I do agree with the 4.5 AoE change, however... with 25% healing on death, it's too much. In fact, builds that use slowing and splash practically incapable of killing the rounds. It should be hard for them, but even with a maxed out defense on wave 60, my pure natures were the only towers getting any kills, and it was only one at a time. I suggest a nerf to 18% heal on creeps.I did a comparison on the DPS between Light and Dark towers. Light (22 range) does about 42.5 DPS whereas Dark (16 range) does about 46.5 DPS. For a range difference of that amount, I figure the DPS on Dark could go a little higher, say to 50 DPS, so a buff to 75 damage would be pretty good.A few patches ago, you mentioned something about changing the pathing dummy model as well as having it periodically go through the maze. I've only seen it go through the maze once, and it's at the start. I haven't seen anything else periodically go through. And then the stuff that just feels weak: Grabbing a 3rd pure tower is pretty much not worth it... at all. So what if grabbing the pure tower thing gave a secondary effect? Say +0.5% interest? Even if you were to rush it, you couldn't make any use of that anyways. Problem with that really is grabbing it at 55 - doesn't do any good. But I figure it'd make grabbing it at least somewhat worthwhile. If it were to give you two, well that'd just be straight overpowered.The following support towers do gimp damage - Barb, Erosion and Ion. They do... pretty much nothing. I did a comparison between them and the Warcraft 3 towers and noticed something - in War3, they'd do approx. 2500 damage over 5 seconds whereas say Muck would do 1500 per shot. It was fairly even because Barb, Erosion and Ion reapply the effects, so rather than appearing to do more DPS than Muck and Polar, they're actually doing about about even in the end. So my suggestion is to buff all of them to 60 per second over 5 seconds.And lastly, well... Radius. I've already explained my case on this one, no matter how much you buff its damage (until it hits absurdity), it doesn't work well with its surrounding elements.

Well, that explains why I thought it was ignoring damage reduction. The tower itself is actually doing double damage. I tested by going on normal, and this is what I think is happening. The tower itself is firing and hitting at 200 x 0.7 damage (140), but the creeps are taking 280, meaning that most likely, its effect is adding another 140 damage on top of its attack.

For a while now, holepercent and I have been joking around about if it's actually possible to beat the game using all support towers. ... challenge accepted. Ran in VersusAI, versions 1.26b. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.SC2Replay

MUCK WILL CONTINUE HAUNTING YOU FOREVER AND EVER! Nice buffs, though two of those weren't that necessary. But they're minor, so I'm cool with it.

Jinx towers can't shoot creeps that have the maledict debuff on them. I don't believe there's any other support towers that have a similar bug.

Holy crap, I just noticed how low polar's damage is. It's single-target damage just like Jinx, yet it's 1/3 the damage output. A difference of 2 range shouldn't warrant a difference that huge. Nice job on the buffs otherwise. I feel a lot less screwed now on random mode, and my god water is awesome now. I haven't gotten the chance to try them all out, but the ones I have tried are noticeable. EDIT: Woops, thought it was a single-target when it's AoE. My bad, ignore that, lol.

Muck/Mire tower ignores the difficulty damage reduction. Twas trying to do an all support tower run to see if it was possible, though with Mire doing twice the damage it was supposed to, it made it kind of easy.

I forgot to note something regarding vapor towers and lag. It's fine in standard mode, but if you design a maze such that everything is getting hit by 4+ aftershocks and you're hitting at least 15 units at a time, that's 60 effects from a single tower, and often times, especially when I get slowing and well 3 later, that increases to even more. A few vapor towers won't cause lag. However, when you start getting a lot of vapor towers in one area (if spread across the map, it's not bad), you can get hundreds and possibly up to about a thousand visual effects going off at once every second, so long as that many creeps are out and being affected. Vapor is cool and well designed tower, it shouldn't need a rework, but if there is some way to tone down those visuals, it could really help with that lag issue. I've got a decent computer, it can handle Starcraft 2 normal games pretty well (except for huge 4v4s) at high graphics settings. However, not everyone has say, a 460 GTX graphics card to power their way to a victory, and in fact, a lot of people are running this game on low settings because EleTD can be laggier than the standard game. Yeah, vapors are broken in maze, nothing to be done about that really. But lagwise, it could use a bit of a reduction especially when that many effects stack.

I'm not sure how this happened, but I killed all of the fruit and there was only 79 of them. Pretty sure that's supposed to go much longer, lol. Fruit ending bug.SC2Replay

Below is my list of my suggested balance changes for the next version. With this list, triple support towers will get a damage buff, obliteration will hopefully no longer fail, and quite frankly, I'm not sure what to do about radius. (in order from Single Element Towers to Duals to Triples) Earth: Comparing to Fire, same AoE, longer rangeEarth DPS = 15Fire DPS = 22It may have longer range, but having only 70% of the DPS does feel a little weak. Also, the visual effect looks big, and I think it should be big. I vote knocking the range back down to 10 but jacking its AoE up to match its visual at 3/6. Damage might need to go down slightly to 14, but overall it should end up fine. Water: Increase damage to 9. Feels inferior to Fire by a long shot, and even the current Earth feels better. AoE is fine. It should feel like a condensed Fire tower with more firepower. It may have a range bonus, but who cares when you can't kill anything to start with.In comparison, current Pure Water does 8468 DPS at 12 range and 1.5/3 AoE. Periodic tower does 9000 DPS at 16 range and 1.5/3 AoE. There's nothing wrong with periodic really, especially given the fact you need 6-element, it's just that water really needs a damage buff. Disease: It is supposed to be a finisher tower, but at 8 range... eh, I'd gladly take the old damage back for the 10 range. It's fine as it is, it's just a personal preference of mine. I don't know where everyone else stands on this tower really. Infrared: Decrease its damage from 10 to 9. Yes, it gets its power the more infrareds you have and can result in stupidity for long single player games, but it still feels a tiny bit strong in multiplayer currently. Ice: It gets most of its damage from the explosion at the end, so it really limits the number of spots you can place it. I won't say it's underpowered right now, but I think a tweak might make it more useful.35 damage for the explosion, range knocked down to 10. Yes, this is a tower where a range decrease would actually help it. Mildew: It shouldn't be underpowered, but it feels that way, and that's due to a result of no attack ground option. I suppose Ice could also have it, but that'd just make that tower silly and obsolete the jet tower. Mildew, on the other hand... it would increase its usefulness by a good bit while not overpowering it. Life: Gold > Life. Lives are nice, but a defense that's actually stronger as a result of more towers will beat out a defense that has more lives. I'm not suggesting an effect change, just that life towers do more than money, maybe from 18 to 21 or something. Not a huge buff, just a small but noticeable one. Laser: Haste is the ultimate single target in the game, it just takes some time for it to wind up. It ends up being (240 / 0.19) = 1263 DPS at 12 range. It's not overpowered, it's just that laser is a bit weak in comparison.Laser is 900 DPS at 12 range. It's also not instantaneous, because it has to spend a second or two launching all of its fighters. While laser has multiple automatic functions and doesn't take as long as haste to build up, it could use a buff from 6 fighters to 7 fighters. Hail: Buff damage to 110. Obliteration: Dark + Light + NatureDPS including 3 second reload = (360 * 7) / 10 = 252 DPSDPS assuming no reload = 360 DPSFlood tower DPS at same AoE = 300 / 0.66 = 455 DPSYes, Obliteration has longer range, but that's just pitiful. I just calculated old Obliteration before nerfs (500 damage per shot, 2 second reload), and it's actually only 389 DPS. Considering its range vs. Flood's 10 range, it's definitely strong, but the nerf shouldn't be that big. I suggest 450 damage at 2 second reload, knocking the DPS down to 350 and killing the option of manual reload. It's nifty, but I feel like there's a huge dependency on it, and late game when you have a ton of towers, it's practically impossible to manage your oblierations' manual reload.Alternate suggestion is 400 damage per shot, 3 second reload, and jack AoE up to 2.25/4.5, still nuking manual reload. You'd still be able to manually use the auto-reload (2 or 3 seconds) for in between waves though, or something along those lines. Radius: 2 orbs, 1.5 attack speed, each does 180 damage and hits in a radial pattern. There is nothing wrong with this tower. It's perfectly fine, except for one major flaw...It does not combo well. The number of locations it can be placed is limited, and its sub support tower is Trickery, but if it has limited locations, then Trickery won't work that well with it. Sure, you can adjust the range on Radius tower for some extra micromanagement (extend to 16 range so it hits bottom and right lanes), but that's not a practical idea for a multiplayer match when people could be killing it before you're able to do that.It does combo alright with Nova and 5 element builds (namely all but Earth, giving you double radial slowing), but again, you're not getting a good 4 element build AND triple-element support towers.There is currently an overlap in towers - Quark, Vapor and Radius. Vapor is unique in that it gets stronger with slowing. However, Quark and Radius are redundant, but why does Quark do so much better? It combos well with Gold Towers (nice single target) and Forge... alternatively, Laser and Trickery. Magnify can go nicely with Radius, but Magnify is also a tower that works better in very certain locations and not so great for use with Trickery (Forge is better). That said, I've got a few different ideas for how this could work:Flip Flamethrower and Radius elements. Yeah, it kinda makes no sense, but Radius being able to go with Magnify and Forge and Cannons works a lot better. And Flamethrower with Trickery can work very well.Give a different ability to Radius that replaces range adjustment. Example, maybe Haste's effect for a single energy orb that starts off slow and gets faster and faster as it goes while also increasing its power a bit. Though it'd result in a little more overlap.Keep Vapor, move Quark over to Radius and replace Quark with something. I dunno, the redundancy of those three towers just bugs me. It's fine is there's a radial for duals and a radial for triples, but two radials for dual? That's just my opinion on it, I'm not pushing it, it just bugs me.Overall, I'm not sure what to do with this tower. Might need a thread based solely on this tower or something. As it is, it's alright at best, but it has issues. And the last balance change... Every Single Triple-Element Support Tower: Since these towers can't be buffed by forge/well/trickery, and random mode can really screw someone over because their only triple or level 2 triple is a support tower... every single one could use a huge damage buff. That, and their current damages are just insignificant. While a muck tower shouldn't be able to solo the later 20s, it should at least knock out the early 20s by itself before you need another tower.Muck Tower - 225 damageBarb Tower - 50 damage a second for 5 secondsNova Tower - 90 damageIon Tower - 50 damage a secondJinx Tower - 650 or 700 damageErosion Tower - 50 damage a second for 5 secondsIncantation Tower - 80 damagePolar Tower - 250 damageFor those that know their original damages, this is practically a 50% damage boost across the board. In the lategame (50+), you won't feel a difference anyways. -------------------------------------------------- Maze Mode: Simply put, while this mode is certainly fun and awesome and works really well, it's not balanced for EleTD. Celerity is a pain to get to work and is worthless by 50+, so basing a defense around it ain't exactly smart. Vapor and infrared are obviously overpowered. Flood is even more hax with mode switching than it is in standard. Quake = god. There's a good number of others that feel superior compared to everything else. I do have a suggestion for a way around this such that both modes can be balanced alternatively without splitting the map into two, but it'd take a bit of extra time. Essentially, for maze mode you'd get a different builder than the one for standard. Its selection is identical, but the actual towers it builds are alterations of the standard mode and thus have different balances applied. Some would have different effects altogether (remember old laser tower? Stick that on celerity). I'm not particularly fond of that idea due to uhh... well, people getting used to one mode and then suddenly, the other mode's towers are different. It's perfectly cool if the maps are separate, but they're not and they're modes. Asides from this idea, I don't really know how to truly balance maze mode. This wouldn't be for the next version, just... possibly something for down the road. The following stuff, on the other hand, is being suggested for next patch. Pathing Indicators: Rather than a pathing dummy in the beginning, could there be an energy arrow that shoots down the path periodically (every 5 or 10 seconds), which shows the enemy path. Dots showing the path constantly can result in a lot of dots for large mazes, so this would prevent that from happening while also giving a clear indicator to the player where the creeps will go. It'll also let the player know of any holes that are seemingly invisible. It's not just a tool for newbies, but something that would help with anyone.Labels. As in, words plastered on the terrain indicating the "Start", "Checkpoint 1", "Checkpoint 2", and "Finish" (or Exit or End or whatever, lol). This one is for new players, and I think it'd be a nice addition that'd really help them out. Orange's Checkpoints are Low: Yeah, the checkpoints in Orange's area are a tower's space lower than the checkpoints for other players. I've tested the exact same defense on Red, Blue and Orange areas based around the checkpoints, and I'm ending up with a tower's less space on the bottom for Orange.There's also some doodad interference on the edges of Orange's area, namely the biotruck in the bottom-right and something else on the bottom edge (I don't know what it is, it's being covered by a tree). -------------------------------------------------- I still haven't properly given Flamethrower a run. Other than that, well... there's my giant list of balance suggestions as well as that feature for maze mode which would be a nice convenience. THERE'S MY TWO CENTS. Which is a lot for two cents. o_O EDIT: Some edits were made after I recalculated some stuff, so some of the suggestions were axed.

That's pretty much the same thing honestly. Think about it - in standard Tower Wars games, you send creeps, thus increasing your income. By creating a tower that gives you money over time, it's essentially the same thing as sending creeps to increase your income, except without the creeps. However, it were a controlled boost in money - say sacrifice 500 gold now and get say 750 a few rounds later, it would result in more BOOM rather than a steadily growing economy (or in income terms, an exponentially growing economy). Actually, that sounds kinda cool. I can easily see it abused, but if the game has it so that someone can send a surprise attack and catch you during that time where you have a decrease in gold and you need it, you may have just screwed yourself over. I did some thought on this over the last few months, and while I haven't come up with a successor, I did think of a few ways for it to work. One, there is a map called Runecraft, where you have two resources - ink (like minerals) and income. That's right, in that game, income is a resource. In order to get higher research upgrades, you have to actually spend income and sacrifice your growth in economy. Two (something this game also does), make income global. Everyone gets the same amount of income and it increases gradually over the course of the game. I'm not going to go into how good the game is or not, but it is an interesting concept that I think should be worth checking out. Another thing is that the current design of a Tower Wars game is based around sending creeps and gaining income. That said, a successor to income would mean a new design. Example, the towers you build end up sending the creeps passively over time (it is quite annoying to spam the creeps button as fast as you can), and the creep is different based on the tower built. Also, in the way that enemies get progressively stronger each round in a tower defense, the same should apply for a tower wars game. Every minute of the game may cause a 10% increase in health or some other effect. Do keep the ideas coming in, and don't limit it to the current design of Tower Wars either.

Uhh, what exactly do you mean by this? As in, it takes a minimum of 2 players to even select hard difficulty?

So yeah, level 1 bosses were 100 hp, level 2 were 500 hp, and level 3 were 2500 hp. Never went any higher than any of those.

Ayr and I decided to have an all pick match in maze mode. I nearly die at one point, and as a result, I decided to try something at the end. The "cheat" starts at the start of the fruit round, and it results in stupidity. Warning, mist towers are super laggy. I just cheated badly_ lol.SC2Replay

Wouldn't actually be a barrier, but that's a really cool idea. The current lightning tower is pretty good... though honestly, that idea feels more suited to the quark tower. It does bug me that there are 3 towers with similar abilities (quark, vapor, radius), and yes, there are number of differences between them, I do think it would be nice if one of them could be altered to something else, that is, either Radius or Quark (Vapor is fine, it gets tons stronger with slowing). If anything, you would create the tower, and then you would select to pick where the other side is built (so that you don't actually have to build 2). Only problem I see with this tower is cloning.