HiggsBoson

I do. Attack speed is way better.

I'm really close to getting Infinite Fruit on Very Hard since all you babies whine about it, so...

I disagree. Not only will it clearly show the number of available options upfront, you could default checkboxes to be unchecked, thus forcing people to pick something before hitting Accept. So instead of having new players see it for the first time and get overwhelmed and hit Accept, they can see right there that there is a Very Easy mode to try first, and other players who've done a few rounds can read about the new modes (mouse hovertips work wonders for this). Both checkboxes or the original button prompts sound strictly better than dropdowns for what it sounds like you are trying to do.

Specifically, it seemed like every 50 kills was the message that the Fruit got harder. And at 350 kills is the "You die now!" message, but after that it didn't look like they got harder. With my Haste and Celerity builds, they'd both crap out at this point, ending with ~380 kills. Which is odd because I remember there definitely being a difficulty ramp in the 600-700 kill range back in 0.76 when i was first stress testing this map, such that it was really hard to recreate a 700 kill Very Easy run. BTW, here's the replay file, but don't even bother. It says I lasted 9 hours before BNET crapped out, so I can only estimate I got around 6000 kills, but if there's some magical way to watch these in the future, here ya go: Element Tower Defense 081b infinite.SC2Replay I'm debating whether to spend time ramping this strategy up through Very Hard to see if I can go infinite there, or to try out the other strategies to see if they can go infinite at all (Torrent seems similar to my build, and I'd try modifying the Pestilence build to include Fountains, so I'd have to go 3331 on NDWL)

Update: OVER 5000!!!1! Yes, indeed SCII.exe is maxing out at the default 2GB physical memory for a 32-bit application. I was told hyperthreading isn't utilized in this game, so since I've got a quad core with 8 threads I've been running at ~13% CPU utilization from the application this whole time. I could probably do an energy balance and find out how much this one game will cost on my electricity bill lol. Wow, I can't believe I specifically added my "this was just supposed to be a test" line just because I knew you'd be a dipshit about it. I should have just wrote "Very Easy mode is pro, Very Hard is for suckers, suck it" and gotten the same result.

I think I just broke the game. The nerf to Interest has allowed me to expand my 4 color testing, mainly into 3322 builds. And I've just stumbled onto something pretty (okay, completely) broken. Typically, I test on Very Easy to see if I can get close to filling the map, all in public games to balance efficiency with being the last to kill yet minimizing leaks. If I find a build, I ramp it up through Normal and Very Hard. But, as I type this, my game is still going. I'm Alt+Tabbed, and I've taken some screenshots to show what's going on, but here it is. *HiggsBoson's Infinite Fruit Kill* Version: 0.81b Public Game Mode: Standard Difficulty: Very Easy All Pick Normal Game Build: I WDL WDL NNNW (Interest, Hail by 20, Comet by 35, Fountain by 55) Beginning: Standard maximum interest gain, build and sell grenade towers when Interest ticks. I miss the "I" key at wave 5, so I go one round without 3% (oh noes). Few other mistakes here and there, but as you can see later the margin of error is ignorable. Middle: Hail 1 goes down around Wave 25, top left corner of position 5, and I build a second next to it on the right for a Earth wave because again I was learning the build. Often I was switching OFF the AoE Storm in order to do less DPS, so units could go around the bottom. I happen to be in a game where someone is attempting that horrible lifegain strategy, so I'm often not in control of when the next round starts. I screw up a few times, over build, under build, but again, margin of error is largely ignorable. Late: Upgrade 1 to Comet around 42, or when that hard Earth wave goes by. Should probably have 3 Comets for the 50+ Earth level, but I underbuilt. I built a Level 2 Well just to see how it would help that round, but 30% is crap, and I should have just had a 3rd Comet on full blast. I respond to some the fairly typical "HOW DID YOU GET THAT MANY TOWERS/MINERALS, HAX" comments. Went into Level 61 with 37 lives and 320K extra minerals. I haven't lost one life since. End: The attack speed of Comet Towers is usually 0.31, but with the buff, you get -0.17 for a lovely 0.14 weapon speed. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you where to build the Fountain Towers, or at what approximate ratio of Comet:Fountain. Also, I build Two Pure Nature Towers just for the hell of it. At some point, it's so laggy, and only one guy sticks around for a bit, Here's me breaking my old 0.76 Haste+Factory 777 Very Easy raw kills record. I also flip my video and texture settings to Low in risk of crashing SCII: And yes, if you look at the timestamps, it has taken over an hour to get here due to the lag of the Comet tower shots. I can post a useless replay file once I feel like leaving the game Most of the time, my screen is off to the side, to reduce the lag of course, and I'm shocked I can even have my web browser open while SCII is chugging along Alt+Tabbed, killing fruit. And just for kicks, here's me breaking 1200: So on and so forth. I'll probably just leave the game running tonight and check it tomorrow morning to see what ridiculous number I get (or to see SCII.exe having crashed and burned), either way hopefully a final screenshot and a useless replay file are to follow.

He wasn't exaggerating. I've seen full map Blitz w/ Fountain, Blitz w/ Factory, Celerity w/ Fountain, and nothing comes as close to laggy as Comet w/ Fountain. It takes 3 minutes to get 20 fruit kills, so an hour per 400 or so.

I've seen this bug in 0.81b, got an extra vespene (a hidden one since the top said 0 but I could still buy an extra element) around wave 29 when a player left, just as always.

I've done this plenty. A full map of Comet Towers really sucks againt fruit. Even on Very Easy, I don't think you can get 200 kills, but maybe I'll give it a whirl in 0.81b. Both Haste(Blitz) and Celerity(Velocity) are better, pending above test.

One more: was it intended for wave 60 to end early once all players kill all units? The 90 second timer is kinda useless then, but I'd really love a fixed amount of time to prep for fruit (as the patch notes implied we would get).

As a programmer who has considered and manipulated this in my own dialog boxes, it is mostly aesthetic: people face-roll when given Drop-down lists. They are more likely to choose carefully when given buttons.

Thank goodness for this, Cannon Tower just felt like such crappy crap. This is an excellent idea.

Instead of removing Interest, here's another major idea: Get rid of the 100% return on composite towers. I abuse the hell out of this and I micro it enough to always gain an advantage, but I never find it boring. I hate Short Mode because it eliminates any advantage you can gain with good micro, which is essentially the last interesting skill in this game that hasn't been nerfed. Of course I think the idea is bogus and I'd stop playing this game if it happened, but the point is Short Mode doesn't offer that early game competitiveness. So pubbies don't play Short, and Micro-ers like me don't play Short. Also, aethetically no one picks Short: Drop down lists = face roll. Selection buttons = better chance to make a choice. The removal of Host option also removed a great chance of getting in a Short game.

No, the problem is you're full of it and provide no proof. You make blanket claims on DPS/cost based only on DPS analysis, but entirely miss the whole point of efficiency and compounding Interest. I've seen and tried the whole Light Tower, or whatever Pure build, and I've extensively tested Haste. It is not as effective as Celerity. But if you want to give me a build to try, as I've supplied mine, I'd be happy to give it a shot. I hope your head is okay from all that wall banging. Uh, I am too. I just posted the replays. Equally effective at killing fruit on a full map (140 towers with support).

Care to explain how reducing available interest picks homogenizes strategy? Given that the ideal way to play is to take as much interest as possible, as early as possible? Limiting interest picks opens up element choices for players much earlier in the game and allows more total element picks to be a viable option. I'm pretty sure this will actually lead to *more* strategic diversity. Personally, I'd be in favor of killing interest picks entirely as the base 2% is still quite compelling and accomplishes the goal of rewarding players for good resource management. Version 0.81 Difficulty: Normal Mode: Standard Strategy: Celerity with Haste/Well endgame Build: I WNF WNF WN EE Result: 771 points (257 kills) Element Tower Defense 081 N 257kills 771pts.SC2Replay Granted, I do tons of Grenade tower rebuild and selling, then before wave 25 I build the first Celerity Tower and micro it to be effective, but even after the updates I can save up enough to fill much of the board with whatever tower I want (~400K minerals), despite there being only 1 interest upgrade. To be fair, I don't think there's any other strategy left that can do this, but I'm just saying it's possible still.

Also, just hit a bug where Voting Ends time reaches 0:00 and the game gets stuck. Probably some combination of people dropping out on load, then timing out as the game starts. Element Tower Defense voting over.SC2Replay The gas bug when people leave still exists. I agree, host should have the option to setup a game type they want, or defer to players, just like it used to be. Loading the game still takes an ass-long time (waiting for other people's computers). And finally a suggestion: The reason why this has been losing out to Squadron Tower TD recently on NA: Career stat tracking. Oh, and that game fixed their loading times, and cleaned up mineral distribution bugs too. Just a thought, I'm not saying this game should use that idea (even though all the top Tower TDs do), but you should think about something to compete with that.

It's still the Go-To pick at Wave 5 for anyone with a good build. Similar to how Wave 5/10 Interest was. Sure the end-game brokenness is fixed from the Wave 5/10 interest versions, (minus my thoroughly tested Celerity Tower still getting nearly 500k in 0.80b) but was that your only goal? I don't see how anyone NOT choosing Interest first could compete (in non-random modes). So if you wanted it to be "everyone just build Interest at Wave 5 and lessen the exponential increase at the end of the game", then it's fine. If you wanted "everyone should still have a choice what to get with certain advantages and disadvantages and multiple strategies can work and be nearly effective, such that having 11 elements or 10 elements and a later interest or whatever are competitive" then no it's not fine. I like it how it is, but if you have to choose, buff the elements, not nerf Interest again.

It's about micro equally on levels that you want to complete more efficiently (using less Hastes). On fast and invincible levels, you have to force them to hit leading units on the 2nd pass. This of course is for Standard mode only, on Race you can overbuild all you want.

Haha, this is a lie, if you're talking about version 0.80b. Prove it, post the replay, or better yet, a Wave 61 screenshot. NO. It's the 625 mineral difference, very early in the game, AND you can keep that single tower for longer, AND you can upgrade it later, AND you can support it with one single Well tower later. It all compounds together. Just looking at DPS numbers, yea. But there's other factors such as time it takes for the attack to travel from the tower to the enemy and amount of overkill, all of which I've shown in my two replays make filling the map with Velocity Towers nearly equal or better to filling it with Blitz Towers.

Okay, here it is, two replays, both public games. I use the same tactic of one Celerity Tower with 1 Well Tower (and upgrading them whenever needed) through Wave ~52 on Very Easy, and at the end the first one I nearly fill the map with Velocity Towers, and in the second I fill the map with Blitz Towers, Both times with Fountain support. The build is: I WNF WNF WN EE I switch from grenade towers to the Celerity sometime between rounds 20-25. Otherwise I sit on a massive pile of minerals, and can achieve nearly the ~500K with only 1 interest upgrade. Pure Velocity+Fountain: 383 kills Element Tower Defense 080b VE 383 kills pure CelerityWell.SC2Replay Blitz+Fountain with a few Velocity: 378 kills Element Tower Defense 080b VE 378 CelHaste.SC2Replay So really similar. In 0.80 it feels like the "You Die Now" phase gets immediately harder, such that it'll be impossible for me to replicate my 777 kill back in 0.76, but the point still stands. Using the Celerity/Velocity tower is too strong.

The Vespene bug (gain vespene when player leaves) still exists in 0.80b. Also I saw some random stray Cannon fire in my zone, despite not having any Cannons. It was right in the middle of my map, and looked like the secondary bombs. I was in spot 3 (Teal), and I think it came from spot 7,

Uh, this is implied. There's no way at all to get to level 50+ with one Haste or Blitz Tower, regardless of having a fully upgraded Forge ot not. Anyone that's tried/seen the strategy just once would know this. That's one part, yes... No. You can't just use one tower for nearly the entire game like you can with Celerity/Velocity. Less minerals used AND longer interest time. Yea, I already do this. At some point, you can't keep up making and selling 26+ Grenade Towers. You just switch to one Tower when you are ready. No. It is never a drawback. At the point when you finally have to start building more towers, it's Wave 53. You're so far ahead in minerals, it's really okay to make a 2nd Velocity Tower. At around Wave 55-56, you start laying down as many basic towers as possible, because it physically takes that long to setup for the upgrades when the interest stops. You bring up your DPS argument again, and then ignore yet again the 4x-8x+ more minerals I'd have to build anything I wanted. I've seen it with my own eyes, me with pre-nerf full 140 Haste/Forge and my opponent on full 140 Celerity on Fruit. It's effective. And you keep going wishy-washy on the "waaah the micro is so hard" versus "well just rebuild grenade towers". If you've ever played Celerity, it's actually really easy micro. Compared to attempting wave 20-30 or so with Grenades, and the Haste Towers, I'd actually say it's the easiest of the three. I had to do a ton of micro trick to really prove Haste Towers worked, especially on fast, image, undead, and water levels. The only required micro with Celerity is on Undead levels, when you really want to be maxing DPS on the edges so it's not overwhelming. The DPS otherwise is more than enough to just sit there and do nearly nothing else between rounds 20 or so through Round 50, usually wishing it'd do LESS DPS so you can get more interest.

Did you get that idea from Auir Chef? Well of course it depends on the conditions of how and why, but the immediate thoughts are a Mineral Siphon (Do something good and you get to steal minerals from another player, or everyone pays you) and a Send Enemies (I guess that's like Line Tower Wars)

How about this for a nerf: reduce the damage but give it the modes like the Laser Tower has, or something equivalent. Maybe it doesn't have to be High Life/Low Life/Random, but maybe Far/Near/Random? I don't know, but something with toggle-able modes would help offset any nerf that's probably going to make this tower suck too much.

Yea, I tried the Celerity/Velocity on Very Easy last night. It's insane. With the logical extension of Well Towers (NW), you can last with just one of each of the towers through wave 50. Haste, even in it's un-nerfed state, could never do that. I'm pretty sure if I optimize my build, I can get 500k minerals even with only 1 Interest upgrade, without losing a life pre-fruit. The other thing to consider: the clock. The game is now made such that the last person to finish the round controls the clock. I was actually microing my Velocity Tower to NOT hit the leading creep, for more clock. Many times you just sit there and not micro at all, intentionally letting the AI hit the close ones so they go all the way around. Another thing: If you build NW+FL, with the last lvl 50 + 55 upgrades into Light, you could access TWO slow towers. I haven't tried this, and one of those is kinda micro heavy and my wave 55-60 performance is unstable, but there still is flexibility. It could be NW+FD too for one slow tower. gwho, you should probably stop blowing smoke and just try it. Your points on DPS are fine, given a fixed set of minerals, but as I've shown, you can get way way more accumulated Interest with Celerity/Velocity due to its efficiency, and I think it needs a nerf (since Karawasa seems to dislike the notion of obtaining max minerals and getting 140 towers built). If you need more proof, I'll try to optimize my build with as much micro to do as I claim: On Very Easy fill the board with towers (public game) with only 1 Interest upgrade. I have one 380-ish kill 0.80b replay, but I overbuilt and screwed up several times.