[On-Going] Tower Rebalance Project

[Karawasa]

Hey Guys,

We are making a lot of progress in several different areas of the game. While we should continue to explore these different aspects, I want to bring your attention to one we need to focus on along the way.

This is of course the overall tower balance. We need to look at both the macro(recently receiving major changes) and the micro(plagued with imbalances that haven't been analyzed) of tower balance. I have recently added two tools that will be of immense help to us. After consideration, I have decided to expand these tools to be multiplayer compatible for B13.

Along with that, I'll be posting the micro balance conclusions that can be gleaned from the macro balance rubric we recently changed to. Because higher tiers of towers use an exact multiple, we only need to balance the lower tiers to achieve success(on a micro level).

Type     Cost     Rubric DPSG     Rubric DPS


Amped   175             3             525

Dual 1    500            3             1500

Triple 1  1517           4             6068

I believe we should focus on fixing the micro imbalances first. We can then test the builds overall, and make conclusions about the macro balance.

Calculating how close each tower is to what it should be will be difficult. The two main issues will be AoE damage and how that is affected by slow/clumping, and also tower placement/range/time. If we test on a neutral creep characteristic and element, then after accounting for armor reduction we will have exact values.

Here is a checklist where I can fill in the values we agree on for actual DPS. We can use this thread to discuss the values and such, but I'd like to use different threads for discussing what to do with specific towers. Notice that the "support" towers are not listed.

Tower                    DPS


Amped Light              ?

Amped Darkness         ?

Amped Water             ?

Amped Fire                ?

Amped Nature            ?

Amped Earth             ?


Gunpowder                ?

Magic                       ?

Disease                     ?

Poison                       ?

Quark                        ?

Mushroom                  ?

Hydro                        ?

Electricity                  ?

Flame                        ?

Kindle                        ?

Life                           ?

Ice                           ?


Flamethrower               ?

Laser                        ?

Jinx                          ?

Oblivion                     ?

Hail                          ?

Drowning                   ?

Gold                         ?

Quaker                     ?

Zealot                      ?

Flesh Golem               ?

Impulse                    ?

Tidal                        ?

[Cisz]

And here it is: The place to decide, how much more dmg a single target tower needs to make up for not beeing a splash. The dmg/sec/gold values are for single target short range I assume? So all long range and splash should be weaker?

[Karawasa]

And here it is: The place to decide, how much more dmg a single target tower needs to make up for not beeing a splash. The dmg/sec/gold values are for single target short range I assume? So all long range and splash should be weaker?

Yes, the values are for your standard tower. We will need to decide how big of a factor range and splash play, and reduce the values accordingly.

[Kaini]

AoE problem

AoE: The damage is the shown damage * AoE * the 'Enemies/AoE constant A'. The constant is A = 0,008 (that's 2/250 alias 250 AoE is doulbe damage). Example (Pure E): dmg_e = 52500 * 350 * 0.008 = 147000 (dmg / speed = dps and dps / gold = dpspg)

Maybe here is the first bug: Maybe dmg in 500 AoE is not the double damage of 250 AoE. See the graph below: The red line is 'mine' formular, blue could be true too (or something like that). I am sure, that 250 AoE = double damage.

If we calculate dmg for AoE correct, dpspg would be a nice value for both, ST and AoE, towers!

Range problem

dpspg is a nice value but it ignores the range. Pure Light has got 13u and pure Earth 19u. If you look at the dpspg the Earth is ~46% stronger! But that is not true because Earth's range is 700 and the range of Light is 1500 (thats more than 100% additional range!).

1st attempt (wrong): Use the unit dpspgr. Simply do dpspg * range. dpspgr_e = 19,97 * 700 = ~13700 and dpspgr_l = 13,38 * 1500 = ~20000.

That value says: Light is ~45% stronger than Earth. But that is totally wrong!I used the damage counter in the Beta 11 of version 4. The counter starts if the first enemy comes into the range and stops if the last enemy leaves the range. I positioned the Light at V and the Earth at VI (I assume that that are the best positions). The test wave was 60 (Composite; Healing - no creep died). The result:

E   ~2459k damage

L   ~2223k damage

It is obviously that Earth is strogner than light.

No solution yet.

I hope I could explain the problems well

graph.png

[Karawasa]

A very good start to a complex problem, thanks Kaini. Although we just talked about this on IRC, everyone else should know how splash works in the game currently: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1053.

[Karawasa]

After a few hours with the new tools I came to some surprising conclusions. I used position 5 for the most part, and also a time period of 23 seconds. I don't claim this is a perfect testing condition by any means. So instead of listing all the numbers, I will simply propose the conclusions I came to for balance.

I certainly encourage you guys to disagree. Feel free to make good use of the tools to prove a point. I will say though that it will probably be best to hold off on any across the board testing until B13.

Passed:

-Magic

-Poison

-Mushroom

-Hydro

-Electricity(B13 values)

-Jinx

-Gold

-Zealot

-Tidal

-Impulse

Not on the list but...

-Muck

-Enchantment

-Polar

-Voodoo

-Blacksmith

-Well

-Trickery

Nerf:

-Gunpowder from 150 to 125

-Quark from 75 levels to 100(same bonus at max level)

-Flame from 300 back to 250

-Kindle from 200 back to 150

-Ice from 300 to 250

-Oblivion from 3000 to 2500

-Hail from 620 to 500

-Quaker from 3000(ability) to 2500(ability)

Not on the list but...

-Nova from 1125 to 750

-Roots from 750 to 500

-Storm from 750 to 500 (also eliminate body blocking, but increase speed)

-Corrosion from 1000 to 750

Buff:

-Life from 1000 to 1250

-Flamethrower from 250(Water radius) splash to 350(Earth radius)

-Laser from 2170 to 2480

Untested:

-Disease

-Drowning

-Flesh Golem

I also came up with the following values(DPS before armor kicks in, i.e. pure) for the amped single element towers:

-Light = 440

-Darkness = 418

-Water = 430

-Fire = 661

-Nature = 530

-Earth = 701

As you can see Earth is clearly ahead of the pack. Light and Darkness should be less than the target 525 because of range difference. The same applies for Nature, but the opposite for Fire. Earth and Water should end up close to 525(as they have the standard range).

Buff Water. Nerf Fire slightly. Nerf Earth. Nerf Nature slightly. Light/Darkness?

Finally note that the target DPS is exactly that, a target. Naturally towers that require micro or are situational should reward the player with above average DPS if used properly. This is a fine balance to walk, and will require the "feel" element beyond simply math to get right.

PS: I have a feeling creep hp will need to be reverted...

[dvdlesher]

Nerf:

-Gunpowder from 150 to 125

-Quark from 75 levels to 100(same bonus at max level)

-Flame from 300 back to 250

-Kindle from 200 back to 150

-Ice from 300 to 250

-Oblivion from 3000 to 2500

-Hail from 620 to 500

-Quaker from 3000(ability) to 2500(ability)

Not on the list but...

-Nova from 1125 to 750

-Roots from 750 to 500

-Storm from 750 to 500 (also eliminate body blocking, but increase speed)

-Corrosion from 1000 to 750

Oh no, so many tower nerfed...

Buff:

-Life from 1000 to 1250

-Flamethrower from 250(Water radius) splash to 350(Earth radius)

-Laser from 2170 to 2480

3 buffed tower...

PS: I have a feeling creep hp will need to be reverted...

Maybe true, I guess

[Karawasa]

Bumping this topic in light of B13c.

[Twilice]

Fast minidump of my thinking.

Quaker - needs a small buff, not to big

Poison - needs a small nerf, but pretty balanced

Electrik - I am not sure on this, might depend on how healing will end. As this tower completely sucks at healing, but pretty good vs others cause of its range.

Gold - Seems actaully to be working (tried it today ^^)

Mushroom, magic and quark - needs another overhaul but I am feeling were going the right way with thesse towers.

Hail - Much better

Trickery - good, but it doesn't stack with other buff towers. Like well boost 200% and blacksmith 200% boost stack.

Fleshtower - Still seems a bit bugged, needs an overlook maybe slight change in ability.

Death - havent tested it much, but seems like it needs buff.

Slowing doesn't help that much anymore - but what about lowering the unit minimum speed again?? (bad or good, I don't know)

Hydro - working fine - but needs a little buff

Flame - working fine, but doesn't stack like hydro didn't aswell, I don't know if hydro got its "autosystem" but if it has flame should also have it.

Ice - seems fair now.

Healing needs nerf.

Fast doesn't care. might need a bit lowered speed but they seems fine. Healing is most important.

Composite -||- same as fast.

The lowered costs seem to be a good thing. But triples still costing 1517.. wouldn't it be easyer with 1500 ??

[electronX]

Statement: Earth is too nerfed down.

In short, on level 5, 2 super cannons did well, on level 6, 3 basic earth towers failed.

Even later when I built earth towers, they had terrible damage. Say, the level 3 damage (middle one) had officially 625 damage for 1000 gold, while the mushroom had 1500 for 500 gold. Earth is spread, mushroom is buffed, still it's significant.

According to the change log:

First, Earth's base damage has been nerfed (officially).

Second, Earth's splash damage has been nerfed (officially) significantly.

I said: significantly.

Earlier Earth's damage was 100% in some AoE. Now it is 50%, according to the change log.

In numbers, we earlier had 2x AoE with 2 dmg, sum damage is 8*pi, while now we have 1x AoE with (less than) 2 dmg and 2x AoE with 1 dmg, excluding the inner zone, which equals 4*pi + 1*pi = 5*pi, so already with this change, Earth's damage is reduced to 62,5%.

With another calculation, earlier we had 5 creeps damaged by 2 = 10, now we have 1 creep damaged by 2, 2 creeps by 1 and 2 creeps with either 1 or 2, 60-80%.

Now that I calculated while wrote it down, I see why is it so crap.

[jolin012]

I have written which towers I like nerfed/buffed and so, but I like to keep it in the thread i started the project in, and don't wanna double-post it

[Karawasa]

Statement: Earth is too nerfed down.

In short, on level 5, 2 super cannons did well, on level 6, 3 basic earth towers failed.

Even later when I built earth towers, they had terrible damage. Say, the level 3 damage (middle one) had officially 625 damage for 1000 gold, while the mushroom had 1500 for 500 gold. Earth is spread, mushroom is buffed, still it's significant.

According to the change log:

First, Earth's base damage has been nerfed (officially).

Second, Earth's splash damage has been nerfed (officially) significantly.

I said: significantly.

Earlier Earth's damage was 100% in some AoE. Now it is 50%, according to the change log.

In numbers, we earlier had 2x AoE with 2 dmg, sum damage is 8*pi, while now we have 1x AoE with (less than) 2 dmg and 2x AoE with 1 dmg, excluding the inner zone, which equals 4*pi + 1*pi = 5*pi, so already with this change, Earth's damage is reduced to 62,5%.

With another calculation, earlier we had 5 creeps damaged by 2 = 10, now we have 1 creep damaged by 2, 2 creeps by 1 and 2 creeps with either 1 or 2, 60-80%.

Now that I calculated while wrote it down, I see why is it so crap.

Earth's splash damage did not actually get nerfed that much. Earth splash used to be:

-200 full damage

-275 half damage

-350 10% damage

and now is:

-150 full damage

-300 half damage

i.e. it was never 350 AoE for full damage. That belief comes from the misleading way I wrote the information in the tooltips.

[holepercent]

my personal tower list up in build project thread.

[electronX]

i.e. it was never 350 AoE for full damage. That belief comes from the misleading way I wrote the information in the tooltips.

Well, I didn't base this information on tooltips, but my personal experience both in 3.0 and 4.0, up to PB. Simply, when the earth tower attacked, many creeps (in corners even like 5) got reduced by pretty much the same amount. You're right, it wasn't 100% on the whole AoE, but very close to that. I may be wrong, so next time I roll an Earth in PB or 3.0 I'll simply (not) hold Alt

[electronX]

I have written which towers I like nerfed/buffed and so, but I like to keep it in the thread i started the project in, and don't wanna double-post it

"You are not authorised to read this forum."

[holepercent]

it's in the dev team forums.. since you're already beta tester, you should apply for dev team as well..

[Karawasa]

"You are not authorised to read this forum."

Now you are.

[jolin012]

Ah, well, I decided to put it in development team section, cause I think tower rebalanced is development rather than beta testing. but it is free for anyone to become a development team member, and you can discuss such things as new towers and what you actually think about towers and modes and stuff.

[Karawasa]

A lot of time has passed, let's get back to this so we can finish up 4.0. I'd like us to start scrutinizing balance more. I know everyone is busy with school, so it is best to make sure we stay focused.

Of course continue to report bugs and other general suggestions (cosmetic for instance) as they come up. The main point is that new content is virtually finished (only race mode is left), and so the more we focus on polish the sooner we can release 4.0 publicly.

[holepercent]

Overall balance is better than 4.0pb. All 15 4-ele builds can be completed now when i failed 3 duing my b5 onwards build project.. i'm left with 3 which i should finish this weekend. After which i'll look at the 5 and 6-ele builds. full report will follow after all 22 are completed

4-ele build balance , armour reduction builds are stronger than the slowing builds. No-slow builds are also strong, some are even easier than slowing builds to complete. The double aoe slow builds are weaker than 4.0pb, and can be harder to noleak than some of the other builds.

as of b15, ice, poison, flame were the overpowered towers. Quark maybe on the weaker side. The rest of the duals can be considered balanced. triples.. Corrosion is overpowered. zealot, hail and laser may need a damage increase. Flamethrower perhaps slightly too strong.

[Karawasa]

Bumping this to get people thinking again. Time will be needed to digest B18b, but I'd like you guys to be thinking about balance as you play. Let's start by reviewing the micro changes, how did we do?