[On-Going] Golems - what's with them?

[Cisz]

Whats with golem?

I asked a few players over the weeks, and the current golem (link mode ability) doesn't seem to work yet. This is mainly becuase its damage is to low.

I foresee that golems with an exponetial damage increase by link boost will either be to weak (that is, don't do anything, like now), to strong (as in "solo the map"), or not there (as in "get replaced" or "link damage is so small, noone cares").

I could get 25 golems to boost a 26th golem (link range 700).

All of them are linking, it just looks as if the ones at the border don't link, because the effect has a little gap at the beginning. Try for yourself if you doubt it. Or you could look at my replay:

25 golems linking.jpg

1570 Etd(4b14b vh) golem test 25.w3g

[echinodermata]

I think I was thrown off by several things:

The name "link mode" is misleading. It boosts other flesh golems... so call it boost mode.

The tooltip is LONG.

I can't tell the boost golems apart from the damage golems.

I can't make much sense out of a growth rate of x(a^x).

But that's the practical portion. As for the concept itself, what does boosting have to do with golems? They move... and they can get boosted? What's the point of having both? The problem with only boosting themselves is that they don't work well with other towers. You'll either build lots of them or none of them. That's not balance. If we want to keep this general idea, we are going to have to rethink the growth model.

[Guest Timberwolf]

The tooltip *is* way too complex for reading at a glance. I don't really have advice on how to shorten it with the current power.

On top of that, I do think the power kind of sucks. Old flesh golems were better IMO. If nothing else they were easy to understand. "Hit things, get bigger". But even besides ease of use they seemed more effective. It requires so many of them in play to make it worth it now that I don't bother, personally.

I like most of the redesigns more or less (Jinx being the best of the bunch in my view), but this one isn't working IMO.

[Twilice]

Hey we could do a simple solution to this tower. (lasy idea, but it would actaully be better then it is now)

Make it move, like it does. But it attacks 3 units multisot. Simple spell but not used in this TD. (Electrik will count as an bounce tower so we have that)

But if that is to simple we could make it more advance,

those pieces of flesh were living and thus bouncing or multishooting to another target again.

I could not attach my image. It was paint.

So I will try to descriebe.

Tower shoots 3 attacks.

Those 3 attacks will either bounce or "attack" again and hit multiple units.

The tower hits a creep with one attack. That attack will spread into X amount of units also.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

so probably would be good against mech then, with that idea?

[Twilice]

maybe, this was just a quick idea. Not much brains involving. But it could work.

[Cisz]

So nobody supports using golem as it is?

I mean, the damage is so low, nobody can really tell if the tower would work out fine yet. Shouldn't we buff it and actually test the version we have before abandoming it? I mean, the code took a lot of work you know..

As I allready stated, I expect the tower to either suck or be overpowered, but I wouldn't axce it without at least a test.

[electronX]

Support as it is? Maybe.

I usually built normal golems and put only 1 or 2 to link. I realized that buffed shots do 6000 damage while normal golems do 4000 and buffers don't attack. Two normals would have done 8000. I also don't know what 1 second is in the game and how fast towers are attack wise.

Link mode also doesn't tell me which tower is helped. Random?

26 golems are 40K gold, but even 10 are 15K. That is level 40 and above. I'm unlikely to rebuild my whole towers between levels that late. For me that means instant mass leaking.

If golems could boost *any* tower then I might use it as a supporting tower. (As it buffs towers with *my* chosen damage kind and not only nature. Otherwise I still not understand, why to build an expensive tower to add relatively low damage to the attack of another.)

The trick is the exponential, but I never put both sides into an ln() to find the point where it starts to be worth.

[holepercent]

If golems could boost *any* tower then I might use it as a supporting tower.

that is totally impossible. we (beta leaders) already agreed that we would only have 3 support duals and 8 support triples. besides, that would just be a blacksmith/well or a hybrid of both.

onto the golems. it's either the defense is build around it or not used at all. the old golem's main difficulty was it had to be build early to allow it to level up for the midgame-endgame and providing some support as it wasn't really a solo tower.

buff the damage (link mode) and see how it goes. as cisz mentioned, it deserves a round of balancing (which most other towers have gone through except golem) and some detailed testing before it gets the cut.

the tower probably needs a more strategic boost. one that goes beyond setting up a strong single attacking tower. an ability where in different setups link and attacking have different uses, where the player has to make a decision on how best to maximise both modes. not an ability that would be easy to think of.

currently, it feels like the player must build a mass of golems, set to link mode to support one attacking golem. which can be weaker than having multiple attacking golems..

[echinodermata]

I think the key to making this tower is finding an appropriate growth rate model. The way it currently is, the player is given an incentive to simply build one damage golem and as many boost golems as possible.

However, I do agree that we should buff it and test before making any changes.

[Karawasa]

I am happy to bump this thread. Check out the new Flesh Golem in B15b. I have modified the poll to allow for re-voting, as I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this reworking.

[jolin012]

perhaps even replace the poll... votes on the former golem remain (unless for those who go change it)

...

[Karawasa]

Any thoughts on the new Flesh Golem?