Cisz

Basically I like the idea of such special game modes very much. I think it would work best, if it would be run by the planned in-map-support for challenges, so that for example the preset elements would be automatically spawned by the map, or limited choices would be changing the elemental summoning center. As for the proposed build of 4+1 elements, I'd rather go for 4 only, with a chance for interest or essence in it. Mainly because 4 element builds are more limited (6 duals and 4 triples instead of 10 duals and 10 triples).

I want so much.. But the most important to me is: The map should become competitive. I wish it would be possible to play pick on a high level with 4 builds or more beeing valid. And eletd going olympic ofc..

Yes, it's true, the skill level of public players seems to grow over the months.

Good thread, I totally forgot that we left the original one at the old forums. Im on Northrend.

130 life with earth and nature?

Agreed, though I don't think it's possible at all. And I'm done with 9 pures. There are 4 known reliable ways to max out gold. This is one of them: >> 9 Pures << (130 life, 1.606.513 networth, 259 Ronalds)

You mean with one element and no interest. The game has been beaten with earth only and mass interest.

There is a way to get 9 pures though. (Cisz innocently starts tft..)

Let me explain: There are plans for an eletd ladder, and this would involve awarding points for won challenges. The system would be automated in great parts. The challenges would be winnable once for every player, and there are no plans to take away points.

You can't get more then 10 obviously, but I never tried for the lack of gold. Even with goldmine I could hardly afford 7.

I've done two tests and $$$$$LL till after 39 looks possible. What do I get if I manage to succeed in this tedious task?

It was ofc a goldmine game. And yes, the pures came pretty late. >> Replay: 7 pures << (Thats tft 1.20e )

Yes, a third pure before ronald is rare. It has been done for racing purposes or fooling around though. My highest was 8 pures, but I died.

The fastest a ve spammer can do at 4 is about 40 seconds from wave start to wave start. And a defender at 6 needs about 36 seconds to clear a wave from shoot one to last shoot. So I doubt you story. Let me speak strongly against the proposed changes. Where exactly is this problem? In a mixed diff game opening, the vh player is at a big advantage. He can spam faster than any other player. You might argue that it is very hard to spam on vh, and very easy on ve, but the point is: If you are playing a mixed diff game, and you can't play on 4 or 3 against a ve racer on 7, you have chosen the wrong difficulty. Play hard on 4 and you will be fine. If I had a very bad day, I counter ve spammers at 7 with vh spamming at 7. They get big problems with every time they leak, as they get two sided or are busy catching the leaks, and, as I mentioned before, 5 seconds is to fast for a ve player. In early game you either need to train or pick a lower difficulty, but the ve/vh matchup is very possible indeed. So where is the problem? It's lategame. You can counter ve racers with vh on 4 only so long. In endgame you will find yourself with bad elements on random or taking long for wave 51, while the ve spammer doesn't get slower at all if he is really good at the game. I can most likely race a vh player to death, if I play a ve pick on 7. He might have a chance on lfwd-n at 5, but it will get tough. Random is not valid. So only lategame ve/vh is impossible to hold. And no training will help you there. I claim the following: No ve player can race me succesfully before wave 30 (that is I won't leak more than maybe 5). And no vh player will stand un-raced till ronald against me playing lfwd-n on 7. The second claim may be a bit daring, if he counters with lfwd-n as well, but I've been in a similiar situation and it was really hard, even though the ve spammer wasn't very good at it. So again: In early game the timing is perfect as it is. Beginners that play ve need the extra time to play. If anything, nerf the vh players ability to spam so fast to protect new players. In case of a pro going ve on mixed diff, it is quite possible to hold that on any difficulty except extreme. In lategame I can see no way a vh player can survive vs ve. So there the delay for a professional ve spammer needs to be raised, while the delay for a vh racer trying to kill ve players is ok. What exactly is the complaint we are talking about? Do we have examples of those problems? Is it possible the the players complaining are not that good and try to play vh on 9 in a mixed diff game?

That sounds a lot better to me. You can eventually get all elements and rebuild a lot to change damage. The 40 - is that hard or easy? I can't tell.

The dmg/gold ratio of pures is so high that you win damage if you sell at 75% to get more pures. So the networth is the limit, which won't be below 72k. That's at least three pures.

...and they hinted automated custom map tournaments and custom map clan support for a working ranking with custom maps.

Ok - Let's start some planning here. Imo there are four tournament modes that could be used for the next one. , thats what we played last time. You loose once, you are out. Double elimination. Thats a modification of single elimination. A player has to loose two games, to be out of the tournament. Problem with this is, this takes about twice the time of a single elimination. At some point (the final at latest) all would have to wait for the slower half of the tournament (the loosers bracket) to finish before the next game can be played. Or alternatively there would be a waiting time for the winning players after each round. Either way, it takes about 6 hours for 3 rounds instead of 3 hours (without long waiting or preparation times and an average game time of one hour). Another problem might be that the last game of the winners bracket will tend to have the best two players, the final is less likely to see the winner of the winners bracket loose, and so the whole "loosers bracket" and "final" buisness may feel a bit pointless. The other two modes involve the swiss system. In the swiss system all players play all rounds. You can't be beaten out of the event. The players of each round are paired with players that got the same score so far (or at least a similiar one). If you loose, you opponents get weaker. If you win, they get stronger. You never play the same opponent again. We could either do a minimal swiss tournament, that is we play the same number of rounds that would be required in a single elimination tournament. So if, say, 16 players competed, we'd have 4 rounds. All players stay in the event, but only those that never loose have a chance on the title. With one loss you are still in, but can't win first place anymore. This makes the games of the players with one or more loss kind of pointless for the overall outcome of the event, altough every player can still make wins and gain points, ranks and fame. In this version we get a final, pretty much as in the single elimination. Or we could do a swiss system with extra rounds. Ofc this would require more time to do. The advantage of this is that for N extra rounds there is chance that a player with N losses still wins the event. For example, if we play swiss for 5 rounds with 16 players, there will be one player with a perfect score after the first 4 rounds, and 3 that lost only once. If in the fifth round the leading player looses and the others win, they can catch up with him. As with the double elimination, this is ofc theory, as in most cases the 4th round will see the strongest player in the lead, and since he can't face the same player twice, he will probably play the last round against someone that will be weaker than his fourth round opponent. All of this are 1on1 tournament systems. I'd like to go for one of the swiss versions, but with ffa games. The players would gain points matching their ranks from each game. Maybe 4 points for last one standing, 2 points for second to that and 1 point for third place. We might have to be a bit liberal with the "not the same player twice" rule, as ffa's tend to get each player meeting each pretty fast. The special thing about an ffa swiss would be, that I never heard of anything like this. We would be pioneers. Developing the new format of ffa swiss. We will be the first to suffer from it's yet unknown problems. But our efforts would go down as the beginning of a new epoch..

@GipFace - Ok, maybe I'll smurf you for a month and do the following: Talk trash about your sexual orientation, your mothers sexual orientation and the size of you car. I assume that you will squelch me after 5 waves, so I continue to advertize racist propaganda and making comments about the size of your worker to all the other players in the game. You will notice that for no obvious reason players will start to leave your game at this point. If I end up in a game that has no spammable player left, I'll stop using message macros and go over to "!"-spamming your minimap. And I will master the art of mini-lagging, by using timed downloads. You won't last a week. Wasn't it you that kicked people for "sucking at the map"? @Karawasa - I want to kick people that spam other players or insult them, post pornographic links, make racist comments, are hurtfull and mean, don't obey to the previously defined game rules, like "no water" or "no racing", make the game unplayable by causing mayor connection troubles, or are people that I don't want to play with. If I don't have the option to forcefully remove players, this will lead to one of the following two: Either I end up in a game I don't want to play, or I leave, which in my case might be the end for all other players, as I'm the host. And that's just me. Most people wouldn't even consider staying in the game. In other words - imo kick has to stay.

Which is precisely why I pick water. Also acid and storm are logical upgrades from steam, can solo, and require a very similiar placement. So a standard opening for pick is wfd or wfl, first dual a steam at 3, 5 or 7.

A pure tower is to cheap. It does ten times the damage of a refined, for only like 4,5 times the cost. I'd say every pure you build equals 8-10k extra gold. Given the choice I would build no damage towers but pures. (Read more if you like.)

I'm on northrend.

About the basic towers experiment: I've done that, and its a bit boring. At wave 31 or so the entire map is coverend with arrows. No more building. Maybe you find a way to make usefull micro, but I doubt it. And afaik you will always leak on wave 33. Since filling the whole map doesn't exactly leaves alternatives, I don't see the point of making this challenge. Or do you think that a mixture of cannons and arrows will do better against healing or fast creeps? I doubt it. But you can ofc play this as you own challenge. If you end up with anything less boring than "map filled with arrows, leaked at 33, died at, dunno, 35 maybe", we can talk again. Coming to think of it, maybe that could be a challenge, although a bit easy: Fill the entire map with maxed basic towers. You are not allowed to leak. You are not allowed to summon an elemental. Interest is allowed ofc. What do you think about this version? For beginners? [For MagicalHacker: Total number of element picks = 0; total number of leaks = 0; total number of towers = "map filled, someone should check that number"]

Agreed. Anyone not choosing the worst possible elements for his oponenents would be very stupid indead. The only version that looks to me like it could work, is that whoever chooses has to play the same crappy elements himself. And of the possible versions of that, only the "one player chosses, all play it" seems valid. Arrange players in pairs? No. And again, only if the elements are displayed before game starts there is the remotest chance that this will not give the chooser a big advantage.

@Clickclick - This challenge is a bit boring imo, as the gameplay involved is to short. So as a result the sollution will either be impossible or easy.