Aranneas

Mirrored anywhere?

All of the 'bestial' sounds are fine, I couldn't care less really. But when the 'humanoids' start talking over each other in a rush to get out their last words I get a bit ticked.

Things that you might grant achievements for: - Defeating a level three boss within a given length of time or by a given wave number - Completing the game on a given difficulty level - Completing the game on a given difficulty level within a given length of time - Completing the game with a given amount of minerals unspent (on a given difficulty level) - Completing the game with a given amount of lives remaining (on a given difficulty level) - Achieving a given number of fruit kills on a given difficulty - Building a given number of towers of one type during a game - Building a given number of towers of one type over your career - Being the last survivor in a given number of games - Being the last survivor in a given number of games on a given difficulty level Things you might give as achievement bonuses: - In-game titles appearing in front of your name - New builder avatars - Special builder colours - Minor, convenience-focused special abilities. For instance, something like increased builder movement speed, or an instant 'copy target tower <here> and deduct its cost' ability, or the ability to use the builder itself as a 'targeting zone' for your towers.

Fail typo made this seem a lot worse than it is. But it's still a legitimate situation.

Simply put, the compounding period for interest is too short. Rushing double interest and selling/rebuilding 1700 minerals by wave 16 is possible. At that point you have enough for 2 or even 3 duals right in preparation for a good stretch of the game (up until around wave 30 to 35, depending upon your choice of build) during which it's possible for a just a few well-chosen, well-placed towers to handle entire waves on their own. Using the last stretch of double pass, which has the greatest lag time between the front and back of a wave, as the focus of your defense, interest gets out of control pretty quickly. This is due to the fact that you simply don't need to add anything to a defense which includes a couple of high-damage area-of-effect towers, at least one good support, and something to pick up the slack on weak waves. With enough care, any double interest build can have enough minerals to max out before wave 50. This is not a good thing for the game. Solutions? There aren't that many as interest is kind of integral to this game. I really don't want to see it go entirely; it's the only thing breathing life into the first 12 waves, and it makes random playable - and random is love. The only one I can think of personally is to increase the compounding period. I would suggest testing 20 seconds to see whether that's enough of a change, or potentially even too much, and going from there. Maybe someone else can think of something I'm missing.

Squadron Mode - All fighters attack a single target, with damage comparable to what we have now or maybe a little bit more. Let's say 150 for Laser and 700 for Phasor for argument's sake. That would be 750 and 3500 single target damage, respectively. Solo Mode - Each fighter attacks its own target, with (30?)% bonus damage on each. That would be 195 and 910 damage on each target. Toggled at will.

Why not just switch to a non-mixed mode? If host sets difficulty, that's what everyone plays at. If not, average the votes.

Sounds good to me.

2 interest run came out with just under 1750 minerals after wave 15 and this one was damn near perfect. Not gonna bother posting broken replays but I will if requested. Based on that and a few more one-interest and multiplayer games I've run, my best suggestion is the following: - 1200 minerals base for single player, reduced by 30 minerals for each player beyond the first. - 200 minerals per point of interest for single player, reduced by 10 minerals for each player beyond the first. Hard data for multiplayer is pretty much impossible with such a wide array of possible scenarios but I'll go with the original estimate. This comes fairly close to it. It's not actually that much more than you've got at the moment for single player, but the difference does feel like it matters, at least to me. And interest does need to have more of a marked impact for the short mode start. Edit: not as perfect as I thought. 1700 and change. New values for suggestions - same as the preceding ones, almost.

TBH it's not really fair to have to micro this one at all, SC2 click response just isn't good enough for me to enjoy it. Short range micro towers are fine; I've been avoiding this one like the plague. The other problem is that if you ever try to click on more than a few attack buildings at a time, you'll get mad FPS drop from the stacked targeting reticles.

I tried obliteration with polar tower combo and it worked fine. OB = darkness tower so its weak to light. So for light stages you either need something strong vs light or you stack up enough OB to take it out. You can also try getting more light towers Artillery are decent leak catchers, particularly against slowed waves. Pure Earth placement on an island is also decent, again especially with slows. You could go Dark3/Earth3/Light2/Nature2, getting Spike for that slow as a bonus. This should actually be very strong as it gets access to Invocation as well to boost damage.

A basic strategy involves the following. * A high damage, area-of-effect or multi-target tower which you will make in decent numbers. - The aforementioned Mold works well. - Annihilation is very popular for this. - Artillery, Atom, Potential, and Nuclear can all be made to function in this capacity. - I think Comet is getting buffed in order to work the same way. Meanwhile, Ice is similar to Mold but trickier to use. * Value multipliers for said towers - as many different ones as you can comfortably stack into the build. - Mold towers shoot faster working with Fountain towers, or shoot harder with Factory towers. They can also be given more time to shoot by adding Spikes or Mires into the mix. Or you can add Invocation to again make their shooting more effective. - Annihilation gets boosted by Deceit from within its own build. It's quite easy to add Spike or Invocation here as well. - Artillery fits easily with Factory and naturally transitions into Spike and Mire. - Atom can go Deceit or Factory as well as Invocation and Glacial. - Potential can also grab Deceit or Factory, and has another set of double slows with Plasma and Supernova. - Nuclear can take Fountain or Factory and works quite well with Hex and Supernova. - Ice has access to Deceit and Fountain, Glacial and Plasma. * Single target, high damage towers, ideally with long range, that cover the weaknesses of your main damage type. - Mold falls noticeably short in this capacity and mostly ends up needing to brute force through the waves, but if you go Fountain you can add Pure Water towers for this purpose. It's also possible to reverse this dynamic and use Mold as the backup damage for Pure Lights. - Deceit and Pure Light towers naturally cover Annihilation's weaknesses. - Artillery/Factory Spike gets Nuclear as a bonus. Or, you can again go the other way and use Magnify. - Atoms get covered decently by Immortals, or can reverse cover for Pure Water. - Potential has Magnify if going Deceit. - Nuclear going Hex also has Magnify. - Ice going Fountain can also be covered by Immortals or also reverse cover for Pure Water. That's basically it. Pick one and experiment. Once you get the idea try finding your own combination.

This is the only reason I'm not signing up for this. Get it fixed and I'm all in.

You didn't read the suggestion. 1200 less 20 per additional player. That means 1100 if there's 6 players, 1000 if there's 11. Again, this is exactly what I suggested. 200 minerals per point of interest - again, with an adjustment based on number of players. Please actually read my post before responding. I don't mean this to sound adversarial but I hope you can understand it's a bit frustrating. I don't feel that the concept of something being 'above and beyond the call of duty' really applies to a game like this. I'm not suggesting that it should be necessary to obsessively farm interest in order to complete the game. You should totally still be able to just play and mess around without worrying too much about interest and I'm not suggesting you remove the potential for this. I am stating the fact that it is necessary if you are attempting to achieve a competitive score. As it stands it is lunacy to attempt a fruit run in a short mode play unless this is specifically the challenge you are setting yourself - because that's exactly what it is, a deliberate handicap. Bringing it more into line with a competitive basis (not necessarily entirely even, just not such a wide discrepancy) wouldn't take any of the fun out of just playing the game. Wouldn't be enough to get me to play short mode for anything other than what I use it for currently. Of course, the game's not just for me, but that's my opinion on it. I'm fine with it being less than the 'theoretical optimum amount' but it should still be close enough that I don't feel cheated when I'm really trying to accomplish a goal. Edit: revised again to 1200 minus 30 per additional player once I realized that you can only have 8 people in a game. You can tell I don't play multiplayer much. XD

If you're telling me sell/rebuild is not how the game is supposed to be played then why does it still give 100% minerals back? Gonna test 0, 1, and 2 interest with buyback. Replays pending. Update: 0 interest is up, once again with some mistakes. Hits 900 during wave 13. 1250 after wave 15, 1300 just after wave 16 hits. Based on this preliminary result I'd revise my suggestion to base 1200 minerals, less 20 per additional player. Tentatively I'd say taking a gas should give 200 less 10 per additional player, though this is still with no data on double interest. I'll get a 'perfect' play, including no leaks, test up then go for 1 and 2 interest. Right now I need to go to work. 0 interest 1250_1300.SC2Replay

You probably should be accounting for at least the possibility of sell/build. Attached replay has some mistakes but already you can see the single player discrepancy. I hit 900 minerals almost at the end of wave 12. After wave 15, I have over 1500. With enough care and/or taking double interest, I'd be willing to bet it is possible to hit 1800 or more - literally twice what you were awarding before. Of course this is solely indicative of single player. Your estimate is probably closer to the mark for a 12 player race. Might I suggest something like 1350, minus 50 for each player beyond the first? You could probably also have taking interest within the first minute grant an instant mineral bonus or something along those lines. Aranneas 68 Fruit Kills.SC2Replay

It's possible to have 1500 minerals or more by wave 16 taking one or no interest. Short mode starts you with 900 and gives you two adds before wave. If you're going for a serious fruits game, normal's pretty much the only way to go. I only use short mode for testing strats I haven't done before.

Getting random interest at wave 40 makes me cry. Just sayin'. For that matter, so does getting a level 3 boss at wave 15.

doubl'd

I think on hard/very hard, first 20 levels are fine - the tension from incentive to juggle towers for extra interest helps keep it fresh. After that, it gets quite easy until around level 40, when difficulty ramps quite quickly straight to the end.