Team Mode

[Karawasa]

To be honest there is too much on my plate right now to even consider something like this. I believe a sufficient number of new modes (or remakes) have already been added (with the exception of race mode).

A long time has passed since the release of the PB. Thus I would like us to stop thinking about new content and instead focus entirely on balance, bugs, tweaks etc.. Everyone is busy with school so we should make the best use of our time to get 4.0 released within a reasonable time horizon.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

i agree that this is definitely not something to strive for for the final 4.0 version.

but, it's nice to have some wishful thinking sometimes

[holepercent]

maybe not for 4.0 but we should keep this in mind for a secondary release after the 4.0 goes public.. Element TD 4.0 Team survivor.. as a new map..

ID: Individual Team Defense (kind of an oxymoron )

My concern is that if you're on a four player team, one fourth of the time there's going to be no creeps in your maze. Wouldn't it be boring for all four players, not just the last one?

i would prefer if this goes something like burb td. everyone has a spawn but the creeps are so strong that each player can kill say maybe the first 2 or 3 or deal like 1/6 damage to every creep.

SD should have a few extra lumber compared to single player.. the whole point is teamwork so there should be some extra lumber to provide combinations not possible in single player but should not be too overpowered. this can be balanced by say stronger creeps.

ideas to develop on.. this is something to work on maybe after 4.0 release..

[jolin012]

I have axed Individual Defense - and left standing is the most importantpart and the very much shrinked Team mode (Shared maze/elementals).

Once teams are selected, builders will get teleported to their teams maze. Either the killer gets the bounty, or they each get bounty for every 4th kill the team does.

And that's it. I don't see the big coding coming up. Why want it so badly? because I think many people will really apreciate it. (minor adding: The players should be set to allies if that is possible - so that otehrs don't have to hear their team chatting.)

Discussion could go back and fourth for a longer time than it actually would take to implement here, therefore I'll rather call to an irc meeting. between 19:00 and 20:00 tomorrow (tuesday) UTC. that is 20-21 for germany/sweden/south africa I think.

So hard to set a time that should work for everyone.

Edit: right, holepercent - your timezone doesn't work at all with this time set, so sorry. You could always drop by your comments in this thread before or after (if ya read that hour of irc chatlog, it prolly won't take an hour anyway.

[Cisz]

How are the teams selected? With some sort of new menu?`Sounds like a bit of coding to me.

[Karawasa]

There would be coding for team selection, creep bounty, element distribution etc.. Also note that all 8 players are already allied, and far as I know there is no solution to prevent cluttered chatter (except changing forces in game settings but that affects the entire game, not just the mode...).

[Guest DevouringOne]

You can do two eletd. One original and second copy the original and add team mode?

Or it will take too many days of working...

[jolin012]

So sorry, I cannot enter the discussion at the time (the time I set myself <!-- s:oops: --><!-- s:oops: --> )

I tried to enter the irc, but it fails, and java doesn't work either. Will get back to my own pc within a few hours - can read the chatllog and this thread aswell ofcourse.

Edit: was referring to IRC meeting, posted this in wrong thread.

[jolin012]

(except changing forces in game settings but that affects the entire game, not just the mode...).

Err, what?

and as for the coding parts they could all be shrinked to minimal. for example for team selections, there could be added, before wave 1 countdown starts, a 1min(or 2min) team selection time, where everyone's maze has spawned 7 teleporter gateway entrances and 1 teleporter gateway landing. From these, players themselves could make up teams by traveling between mazes. Afaik teleporters are not something rare and hardcoded in wc3, but that was just what i thought myself, infact i have no actual idea. if a player wants to play alone there could be a button on his own landing gateway "Destroy gateways - I don'twanna team/I declare my team full".

The easiest way to make players get allies, would be to make all non allies, but allow 'em to become allies manually (in the regular wc3 allies tap), and ingame request them to check the allies boxes of his allies.

creep bounty: Fine - if that is coding, then leave it as, the one to make a kill gets the money. that shoudl work too - and the one who decides to build at entrance doesnt' get kills nessesarily, becuase all in team need to fight to get the creep down.

[jolin012]

Now that there is less on the plate, I would not like to count this one to Exiled Ideas.

Also I know every coding Should be possible, including this one: "Also note that all 8 players are already allied, and far as I know there is no solution to prevent cluttered chatter"/karawasa.

I like the idea and think it should be counted as "may be implemented in teh future". I'm moving the thread now - and if you move it back to exiled, guess what, I'll move it again . heh, nah, no worries, "may be implemented", doesn't mean anything anyway.

[PunKZ]

Sounds nice, but such a mode can't be played team vs team, not with 9 players, it would be unequal, but I guess 9 players vs Creeps would be really nice but hard coded maybe?

[jolin012]

max players in element td is 8 players. also I don't really understand what point you are trying to make...

[Twilice]

Maybe he wanted to *Bump* a thread?

[jolin012]

I definitely believe he was trying to make an opinion from what he read in this thread. he just needs to explain what he means a bit more. there is nothing wrong in bumping this thread imo, it is still open for new ideas and twists, or just opinions.

[Twilice]

True, could be more 2v2v2v2. A whole team vs team might be a bit to much.

[Cisz]

I have a bad feeling about team modes.

Afaik team gaming never works. You either end up with a fixed team and a gaming schedule, and I don't want to promote that, or you get a random team of public players.

Anyone here having experience with any type of team gaming? How about dota, do you play with public teams?

My guess is, it only sounds nice but in reality usually leads to a lot of agression and frustration, right?

[Karawasa]

My guess is, it only sounds nice but in reality usually leads to a lot of agression and frustration, right?

Doesn't sound like fun...I hate idiot teammates myself. Rebuttal?

[jolin012]

so you think all those people play dota not because it is fun but because they think they are having fun?

I do think many people, at least the ones who try and keep playing the team mode, would enjoy it. else they would stop playing that mode, I don't think people are that stupid. besides, if you didn't wanna be on a team, you could go solo while the others are in teams, this however, depends how the team selection bit is done - and in which way the teammode itself will work. as far as I remember there were a couple of different ideas on how the teams work.

also, we could use methods against flaming, like vote kick and chat silencing.

dota-league has very little flaming but that is because they make it hard to become a member, and can't have multacc.

[Cisz]

As long as you can't present a single example of a satisfied team player, yes, I think they are stupid. You play dota, but you don't seem to be the player in question, right?

Let me guess, you usually play with abusive idiots that call you names all the time?

[jolin012]

depends. if I play on dota-league, they behave, in fear of getting banned. if I play somewhere else, they flame... alot but as long as I don't suck, there are examples of satisfied teams, but ofc the flaming is then ongoing in the other team instead.

will there be alot of flaming in eletd if there's a team mode? it depends. if it will be obvious that a player is sinking the team, and everyone will notice if he sucks and nobody can do anything about it, then yes, there would be a lot of words against that specific player. in dota, ppl don't anger if you suck in secret, but when you die, they are angry.

if there is the individual choice to play in a team or not and enough players choose to play in a team - then why not? if the players who don't like flaming or teams can play without team, then the mode has done nothing bad to that person.

[echinodermata]

I thought I would revive this.

First of all, on Cisz and Karawasa's general bad feeling team modes:

Let me say two things.

1. Element TD is a solo, free for all game. You are players of Element TD. Of course you prefer solo. Nothing personal - it's just selection bias, in a way.

2. The vast popularity of DotA proves in itself the popularity of team modes, whether you like the actual game concept of DotA or not.

Now, let me comment on what I perceive are issues with the proposals so far. I will ignore the cluttering details and just focus on the "game concept".

Shared maze (and shared elements, of course), normal creep strength and bounty, whoever kills the creep gets the bounty.

> This just breeds competition among teammates.

Shared maze (and shared elements, of course), normal creep strength and bounty, bounty distributed evenly (or in rotating fashion - same end result).

> 25% the gold for everyone, 25% the fun!

Shared maze (and shared elements, of course), multiplied creep strength and bounty.

> Not enough buildspace. Changing the terrain was proposed, but that just introduces more problems than it solves.

"Relay" style modes.

> There's plenty of variations on this. Some variations have the problem of making it really really boring for the last player in the line. Some variations have the problem of taking 4 times the amount of time to complete a wave. But all have the subtle balance chance that arises from simply multiplying the creep HP. Subtle effects from the length of the combined-maze being 4 times as long. What changes when single target towers don't do overkill damage nearly as much? What changes when the creep line does not thin out much at all? What changes when the first couple players in the line are expected to use the whole length of the maze, rather than being expected to kill the creeps before the end? How will undead and healing be affected?

Subtle balance changes, guys. How will these be accounted for? And even if they are, we hardly would like to do twice the amount of balancing whenever we make any changes to towers and/or other aspects of the game.

I say we make the most conservative team mode of all:

2 teams (top vs. bottom).

Each player has his own individual maze and his own spawns which are of normal strength and normal bounty. Each player has his own element picks, his own gold, takes all the bounty from his kills for himself, and is independent in every sense from his teammates. The differences, and the only differences, are:

When you leak, the leaked creeps pass to the next area, in a circle (this is not relay style because the creeps are of normal strength, and you lose one life when you leak to the next area, not when you leak through all the areas).

The team has one combined team life count.

Side note on rushing (not central to this proposal, although this is probably where most of the competetion between the teams will come from. I understand there is coding to do for this): When the first player from team A finishes a wave, the next wave starts for team B, and vice versa; but if all players on team A finish wave x and nobody on team B has, then wave x+1 starts for team A anyway. Obviously one team could get rushed very badly this way.)

Why should we even make this simplistic team mode? Because, among other things, it is the most natural setting for Hero mode (aka "DotA mode"). Although I do kinda like it for its own merits as well.

[PunKZ]

It would be awesome, I'm not sure exactly how it would work though. But I'm sure our smart mapmaker can figure something out

[Karawasa]

I've given it some thought, and I think there is a solution. Here is how it would work;

1. The mazes are shared, but there is one for each player. Say the game is 2v2. Then each team would have two areas to look after.

2. You can move freely and build freely in areas that are controlled by your team. Perhaps a blink type spell can accomplish this.

3. All gold is shared evenly amongst your team.

4. Lumber is not shared, i.e. what you can build is specific to you and you alone. I imagine it would work the same as default mode.

5. The areas work like normal. If a creep leaks it just loops back to the same area.

6. The lives are shared as well. If a creep leaks in any area under the team's control, they lose a life.

7. If someone leaves his gold is shared with team, and the area corresponding to his start location is shut off.

Here are some common problems solved;

1. Stuffed space by having to share one area.

2. Not fun by having to share gold.

3. Too impractical to make by having a different layout.

Thoughts?

[Twilice]

How about a semi-shared goldpool. Where the killer gets 50% of the gold and the rest is split 50% (if there are 2 players the killer would get 50%+25%)

I got a feeling some players would just mass interest then leaving one of the players alone.

[holepercent]

alternative:

same as regular element td, with the following exceptions:

a player can choose to play solo, or join a team by changing the team number in the pregame screen.

those players on teams then combine their life total, and are able to blink into their teammates' areas and build in their areas. (suppose this can work burb td style. you can keep the tower and 'steal' your teammate's gold, or donate it to the player who then receives the gold from the tower's kills. tower cannot be upgraded unless controller has the elements. the tower can be sold by the controller.)