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This morning I was reading my newspapers and on the technology section I found an interesting topic: ACTIVISION and BLIZZARD are fusing together to create the maybe haviest weight in the videogame-industry worth 18.800 million $ (USD) (13.000 million €). The CEO of the new giant Activision-Blizzard will be Bobby Kotick, who was CEO of activision till date. The main shareholder of the new company will be Vivendi Games (main shareholder and partner of Blizzard). Two compensating companies put together: While Blizzard leads on succesful games on PC platform and owns great influence in asia thanks to their online gaming concept, activision is owner of many of the newest releases for Xbox, P3 and Wii. Now it's your turn, how do you think this is going to affect future releases of Blizzard? Poll & Comment.

Ok, lets stick with the morphling idea. What if the tower owns 2 skills 10 secs lasting with 30 secs cooldown. A "positive" skill that will copy any tower of the same or less value, excepting triples. So, lvl1 trickery can copy a Death or a well tower of its same lvl. Its the Yin skill. The copied tower deals +100% damage. A "negative" skill that will reproduce the oposite tower (exchanging elements to those that dominate the weekness of the copied ones). Same rules like positive. Copying a Death tower will result i.ex in a Hydro tower (Earth>Light>Dark, Water>Fire>Nature), sounds complex but it is not. This skill means "Make me a tower that can defeat the leaking round of this tower". Making the negative of a Well tower would result in a (Light>Dark>Water, Water>Fire>Nature) Ice tower. Its the Yang skill. The negatived tower deals +100% damage. Trickery can reinforce the rounds you are strong in by using positive and can compensate those rounds that you would leak by using negative. Notice that Negative not always works in duals: In the case of a death tower, if you face a light based round you can create a hydro that owns earth damage and you'll be fine. But in case you have a Well tower and face a darkness based round, its oposite the ice tower will deal water damage as well. Notice as well that if you copy a Electricity or a corruption tower (the stronger ones), the +100% damage is wasted as it only applies to attack damage and not to skill damage. However, it works perfectly on single towers. If you have many amplified darkness towers and face a light level, trickery swiches to an earth amplified. @ 13est: Hope this honours somehow your yin and yang idea. @ 1mpulse: This could be a more useful tower even in random.

D+F+L A High focus energy tower with a long range attack that consists in spitting small balls of plasma. It has an multishot autocast that consumes mana, owns a small attack range and shoots 3 bigger plasma balls with 75% accuracy each. (25% chances to miss the target) It owns as well a "Annihilation" skill, it consumes the whole mana pool of the tower and unleashes a huge ball of critical mass that moves very slowly to its objective and explodes in a very high damage aoe, you can cast it to a big distance but it is hard to time well the skill, as the energyball moves foward so slowly. Annihilation is casted manually to a point. The exact point of explosion is not 100% coincident with the point chosen, it is an unacurate skill and can turn off a bit (maybe between 0-200 distance). No cooldown. Exceptionally, this tower owns a third "Overload" skill that resets cooldowns of all towers in a small area you can choose and costs about 66% of the mana pool, no cooldown. Resuming, its a very flexible tower which regains slowly its strength (has and needs a huge mana pool), and requires a good portion of smart planning and timing to be used on its top potential. Can work as a support as well. (Somehow its the big-bro of the magic tower ) The upgraded version improves as well in mana regeneration.

Well, we can change the copy points to 2/4/6 instead of 3/6/9, have it 5 secs copy duration instead of 10, and leave the 30 secs cooldown, i don't think it would be that great anymore, would it?. You would need to do a higher investment before you can start copying triples, and how soon can you get light and dark at lvl2, wave 30 ... maybe even 25 (dont forget that soloing on trickery is senseless, you need a support element). I think there are ways to adjust the tower. Besides, it wouldnt make sense anymore to copy oblivion, the tower would be destroyed before it can summon. Some towers will be more suitable to be copied than others.

I was one of the bad guys that voted against it, i'm still a bit sceptic about this point. The problem is that VE players can be very fast or very slow, if we adjust it so that very fast VE players cant spam, a slow playing VE player that is still 1 sec faster then all other players, will madly increase the game length. Just imagine yourself as a pro VH player waiting nearly 30 secs after each wave, you wouldnt know were to go with all the cash. Maybe I see demons where just are shadows, let's have it a shot and see how it works.

Isn't there a way to reduce the costs of towers for... let me guess... maybe -10% for easy and -30% for very easy difficulties? The way it is now the easy difficulties are not as easy as I hoped. If necessary we may readjust the wave to wave delay to avoid spamming.

@electronX: First of all thank you for your sincere and honest post, not many have the nerve to post negative commentaries on forums, i really apreciate that. I tried today myself 5 games on noramal dif. random, and was just in 2 games able to achieve wave 50. One ended at level 60 and the other one on level 57. I remember I massed lvl2 gold and electricity and had lvl1 nova and windstorm towers to slow, I played on 9 to have enough gold to beat the game, didn't work at all. I'm not a good player, just average, and I admit that being used to beat the game in VH most times in 3.0 and see now that I cant on normal difficulty in 4.0 is a bit odd. But we claimed for a redesign for 4.0 in which the difficulties are made that way that you need to be good to finish normal difficulty, and have to be a pro to finish VH. For now, it seems to me we got what we wanted, it is damn challenging. I just think that we need to find a way to make VE and E easier without spamming others on multiplayer, for now, easy difficulties are not newcomerfriendly and we are imo barricading new players way to have fun.

@ 13est: Hail tower: Not exactly, each x time a creep is in the area (which you select like most of the besiegement weapons in w3tft), a frozen debris falls upon his head, having a 50% chances to full damage and 50% to do no damage, it should be done so that each creep that has to travel through the center of the small area, gets targeted twice, maybe 3 times if it is slowed. This reduces sicnificantly the chances that a creep passes through without getting a scratch and there is a chance that the same creep gets meteored twice or more. It has to be at least a tower that works good with Ice (L+W), Trickery (L+D) and poison (D+W) Your jinx purposal: I just dont agree to have a triple that attacks with fire and has extra light or extra darkness. I feel that triples have their elements mixed so that they become something more than just the elements they are made from, something different than the single parts. D+L+F sounds to me more like a huge energy skill, devastating somehow.

Topic Hail tower: I like cisz idea for hail, i think we should keep the "frozen cosmic debris"- concept and redesign the attack, it would be nice to have the tower taget a small area and punish it mercyless with frozen meteors as soon as a creep walks over it, many simultaneous meteors, mid damage and we could even keep the 50% hit chance. Its somehow like glacier but has longer range and doesnt slows.

I think that trickery is one of those amazing towers that fits perfectly on its role and that i'm proud to have in 4.0. We just need to work on its balance. Here's my purposal: -Rage works, doesnt it? Lets swich the role of Trickery to a similar like rage: -Lets create a points system for this tower. Trickery lvl1 has 3 points, it can copy at once 1 triple; 1 dual and 1 amplified single; or 3 amplified singles. The cost in needed elements for creation of a tower is the power cost for copying it. Therefore, a Trickery lvl2 has 6 points and can copy a triple lvl2 (needs 6 elem. picks to create), 2 lvl1 triples, 1 lvl2 dual and 1 lvl1 dual,... -Lets rework the copy skill. As soon as you press copy, the tower will link itself to the most powerful towers trying to fill all 3,6 or 9 copy-points. You can deactivate and reactivate the skill to re-link again to your towers (if only 1 triple has place on the copy-queue, and you have 3 triples, it will take a random one in range, reactivating allows you to randomize again to get copied a specific tower, or to substitute a "dead-link" because you sold the tower it was linked to). -Once a linked trickery attacks a creep, it will create copies of ALL linked towers at once and create them ON adjacent squares to tower placement, the copies will stay same duration as our rage skill does and needs as much time to be used again like rage cd is. So, you have short living copies with large cd. -You are supposed to choose manually (half-randomly) the towers to be linked. Once the tower is linked it will do the rest of the job on its own, it will autosummon all copies from time to time, as soon as the tower attacks. -Placement gets extra important because you need to be at the same time close to good towers to copy and need to have your tower activete itself on the right moment, as well you need free adjacent squares or your tower will create less copies than normal. -We could as well make the tower have 2 skills, one to link/relink, and an autocast to create copies that can be activated manually or can be left on auto. Thoughts?

I think it's a good idea to be considered, as well as shuffling the position of the players if you restart, it's just a bit early, we should reconsider this idea later on.

we should not make it more complicated as it is, multiply the damage of the death tower by inversal handicap, thats all. damage = base damage x (1 / 0.65) for very easy (handicap 65%) ... damage = base damage x (1/ 1.00) for very hard (handicap 100%) no one said that we should fix the max health issue depending on difficuly, i think we can live with the idea that creeps start in easier difficulties being half-dead (for now ).

I've just tried on normal difficulty to see how far i can get with 1 death tower, 1 rage tower and 1 amplified dark and got to wave 26 without leaking. I think we should make death tower take into consideration the difficulty (so that it applies starting hp instead of max hp) and increase the damage by 10%, i think that would be enough. I wouldnt change anything else, it is a tower supossed to be used before you splash damage the mobs, and it should stay this way, the real problem is that neighter darkness nor nature singles nor the correspondend duals have a good splash, you need definately a 3rd element like earth to splash.

As long as the skills can be balanced there can be differences i. ex. the water aoe damage (1 in my list) could be a field spell damaging creatues over time in an area and frostbiting creatures that are slowed by Ice towers and slow creatures affected by kindle's roast. while fire aoe damage can de a vulcano that throws randomly lava xhunks and benefits from sunburned and rosted units making the corpses explode. while light can be a mix of lightnings falling from heaven and then bouncing 1 or 2 times after they hit. Units hit get double damage if they are hit more than once or hit short after by a electricity tower. Really doesn't matter, it has just to be possible to balance it somehow.

i referred as aoe talking about skills/spells and as splash talking about the normal tower attack.

I would vote for a redesign of the actual hero mode. I dont like the fact that you can't choose how to develop your hero. I think the main reason hero-mode is not very popular is the lack of strategy on them. Heros should be sensitive to a smart planing of their role and skills, and they should always be seen as active controllable supporters of the build, not as main characters. Here comes my concept: Heros get 1 level each wave that finishes. Heros get a skillpoint to spend all 5 waves/ levels. It is impossible to get all skills maxed out at once. The sooner you get a hero, the stronger he gets endgame. 0) All heros have a mid range aura, it is an autoskill that cant be upgraded as its effectivity depends on hero level, i.ex. (slows enemies a 0.3% per hero level). 1) All heros have an equivalent aoe damage spell (can be bouncing, terrain or all-in-a-line spell as well, as long it is possible to balance easy). This spells are suposed to synergize with the disables of the towers of the element the hero is. Has 6 levels. 2) All heros have and equivalent aoe disable/damage buff, those who concentrate using their towers to damage can use the hero to disable or to increase the incoming damage the mobs get (like aoe slow, aof armor reductor, aoe curse,...). Has 6 levels. 3) An shortrange autocast to buff single towers, the hero is supposed to walk over the tower he wants the spell casted on. The autocast affects only towers aligned to the element of the hero, and the effect varies from case to case. Has 6 levels. Here some ideas: Light autocast: Farsight amplifier Improves range and damage of light single element towers, except pures. (Dual light) Increases attack range of Ice and life tower, increases bouncing range, copy range and teleport range of Electricity, Trickery and Quantum tower. Increases attack range of some of the triples that have light element on it. Buff is only slightly, as there isn't much light element contained in a triple. Darkness autocast: Resistence Piercer Makes dark single element towers have a portion of armor ignoring damage (i. ex. 20% of damage ignores armor). Except pures. (dual dark) Ignores % of armor or deal extra damage on Contamination, Touch of death, Magic damage of Poison, death and magic tower, gunpowder ignores % of armor, trickery has longer duration of copies. Increases duration of some disables/skills of dark triples, in some cases it grants a portion of armor ignoring attack damage or skill damage. (resuming the other elements) Earth autocast increases attack speed Nature autocast increases attack damage Fire autocast increases splash, mana regen, or resets cooldown each 5 secs. Water autocast increases splash, aoe, or resets cd each 5 secs. (i have a full list if you like the idea) 4) Hero upgrade skill, upgrades damage, movement speed and mana regeneration of the hero. Has 6 levels as well. This way the role of the hero is choosen by the player and it requires a certain experience to know what works and what does not, you need to create a build addapted to the skills of your hero or addapt the hero skills to the build you use.

I knewed it had to be something simple, thanks for the swift answer, i'll try it right away.

I have had a look on the map editor to try a couple of things and saw many unprotected maps using negative values in ex. for auras. The thing is if I try to change the values they reset to 0. How can I force the mapeditor to accept negative values for in ex. a aura that reduces armor and owns several levels like the hero skills. Im sure it has to be something very simple im missing. Thanks in advance.

Thats because Kara mailed the whole tester team (maybe the developer team as well). How could we not come back. Who likes it to eat in an empty restaurant? Now it is a popular restaurant again, we all come back to dinner. I hope we will be more mancraft than ever after this slumber.

Actually I think draft could work both ways: Random-Pick : Before of level 5 you get 14 randomized picks from which you choose which one is first, second, ... to be applied. Pick-Random : Before of level 5 you choose a total of 14 picks which will be given to you randomly each 5 levels. So, its not 100% pick nor 100% random at all. Back on topic: I thnk that a Build random or demi random option would be nice, something that takes in consideration which elements you have already be given and when the right moment is for some things. I.ex.: The chance to get a second level element is higher than to get a new one at level 1, considering that no second level element appears until wave 20 (or the chance is considerably lowered). The chance to get a level 3 element is higher than to get a new element you dont have, and after wave 35 it is higher as well that the chance to get a level 2 element from which you already own first level, all considering that 3rd elements probably wont appear before of wave 30. Interest starts with 0% probability at wave 5, but gets high probability afterwards, a second interest has low probability to appear, having its maximum chance late-midgame, considering that the chances on waves 5 and 55 to get interest are 0%. Extra pures wont appear before of level 40, but have high chances to appear on the last waves, wave 50 and 55, each completed set of 3 levels for any element will rise the chances to get pures. Same goes for having all 6 elements. If you already have 5 lvl 1 elements, the chance to get the remaning element will rise suddenly, excepting that this happens after wave 45. So this would be 100% random but the elements you get will have a certain AI, tending to complete elements up to level 3, getting all 6 elements or give you pures once you got the 3 levels of an element. It somehow optimices the chances to build lvl3 duals and lvl2 triples. @1mpulse: It would be less limiting than 4 elements + 4 lvl2 elements but would avoid as well crappy builds. What do you think?

Ironicly- Why don't we change all disables and boost support towers and make them have an long range aura so we don't need to worry about placement, micro nor anything else? Now seriously, certain placements allow you to single strike mobs with slow, it's all about placement knowledge and gameplay experience, it's ok imo, 1 tower = slows between 1/3 and 1/2 of the mobs, you need a second one to optimize. I think we should give no chance to players to abuse of microing, but we should give them a chance to make the difference. Interest microing is OK, damage microing should be a bit more limited. For me it sounds the most logical that all towers start with 0 or low mana, there is no good reason for building a already charged tower, it would solve some of the balance issues and imo makes more sense. Besides, I normally don't micro much on bnet, it's just to risky you missclick and leak 5+ lives or get interest before the tower is sold because of the "natural" lag. It's fair to micro from my side, you get something because you risk something.

I'm a VH SR player as well, I don't like race and don't really care about hero mode. The 4.0 beta -chaos mode is absolutely fun, I predict myself as an fanatic chaos player.

@13est Last time I went walking I found a stupid sign saying this: (Gothic 2)

Actually, if you have shared bounty, you can sell all towers and farm nice amounts of interest getting bounties from your mates during 2-3 rounds and build good towers to be back in action, just don't overdoit or your teammates will complain. As well, with random appearance, you will get creeps even if your mates are good killers, and with their bounties you may get a good killer as well

I found EleTD when I searched im mapdatabases, I was a bit pissed off about many of the maps played on bnet and actually I never thought to start playing TD's, I was looking for some good RPG's for solo and thought to give it a try on TD's. At this point I read some good comments about this td and downloaded it. Since the very start I was impressed about a such simple, yet diverse the game was. (I mean, water + earth = clay, Light+Water = Ice, how more simple does something needs to be?) I started with hero mode, fought my way through hard and ended up searching for new challenges and dropped on random mode. I think I actually started on 3.0 since the very start. I played for weeks untill I knew all towers and started tactical play. Since then, I have never played pick anymore. I started up on Very Hard and on bnet to find new challenges. Thats the whole story.