Suggestions for the next release

[Guest ginc]

First off, I know I'm kind of late to the party and some of these suggestions have probably already been made. My apologies.

Anyhow, from reading posts from mods/admins I think I have a pretty good idea of the gameplay you guys are trying to achieve, so don't worry, none of my suggestions are crazy. Keep in mind these suggestions are based on the 4.0 public beta.

1. Leak/Interest abuse fix

If players = 1 and a leak happens, pause the interest timer. Restart the interest timer when the wave ends.

Shouldn't be a problem in multiplayer.

2. List tower combinations by damage type

IMO the double/triple combinations should be listed with the damage element first. For example, Flamethrower should be FDE (or FED) instead of DEF. Sure, players can learn by playing the game alot, but it would be nice to see the damage type of doubles/triples in the Quests menu rather than needing to build the damn thing or check the website.

3. Overpowered towers

Ive heard some say that upgraded Gunpowder towers and Muck towers are being nerfed in the next release... if so, this is good, since these 2 towers are probably the "best", Vulcan probably being the most overpowered. Mucks aren't too bad, but they could use a slight damage reduction.

Currently, Vulcan actually makes some 3-element builds doable - DEW can be beaten with 100+ Ronald kills, and DEF (part of the so-called "hardest" build, LDFE) can be beaten by leaning heavily on Gunpowder and using the crappy Flamethrower as a cover for Nature waves.

4. Unupgraded towers

Hydro and Jinx towers are not worth upgrading in their current state - IMO they need to be tweaked so that their special abilities are more powerful when upgraded, because they aren't good damage towers. An easy suggestion would be a greater Stun/Teleport chance for upgrades.

5. Proc-on-kill towers

The "proc-on-kill" towers (life, flamethrower, gold) are currently underused because they do less damage and therefore rarely get kills. My suggestion is to instead make them inflict status conditions that cause the desired effect when ANY tower kills the unit. For example, the Gold tower could "gild" a unit for a few seconds, making it produce more gold when it dies. Obviously the "debuffs" should not happen on every attack - a sensible cooldown timer and duration would be needed. The Polar tower is a good example of this concept done right.

6. Other underused towers

Aside from the towers listed above, the disease and drowning towers are generally considered "weak". Some others are "comparatively" weak but still fill a niche and are usable in special situations, so they can be left as is. As for disease and drowning... maybe these just need to be redone. Here are some suggestions.

Disease - ability to "infect" a creep and make it damage other nearby creeps within a certain distance. Kind of like Lightning Shield in vanilla WC3. Would be optimally used after a bunch of slowing towers. You could use the disease visual effect from the Abominations for this.

Drowning - ability to cast an long-lasting percentage-based DoT spell (drown). For example, tier 1 could cause 1% of the creep's max health in damage every 2 seconds for 40 seconds (20% total), tier 2 could do 1% every second (40% total). This one would obviously work best early on the path. Maybe use the visual effect of Cripple for this.

7. Periodics = lol

These towers need some kind of weakness - they're just too good at everything. Perhaps make it an extreme damage tower with a VERY slow rate-of-fire, kind of like the Obelisk of Light from C&C

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

1 - interesting! not sure if that's exactly what i would want, but it's a neat idea...have to think about it...

2 - your suggestion makes sense, but isn't the -color- already indicative of the damage type? (my memory is foggy)

3 - muck is definitely overpowered as is in the 4.0PB (though i do/will kind of miss it...=( ). I actually used to think gunpowder sucked =P. the upgraded ones are definitely powerful, but the downside is that as long range towers they lead to slower play in general...but yes, these concerns have been taken into account.

4 - also being taken into account afaik.

5 - being somewhat addressed, but it's nice that you brought this up. these towers are always tricky, agreed.

6 - disease is broken, we know =). Drowning on the other hand does not suck! It can be quite useful, just give it a chance true, late game it might lose its effectiveness significantly, but the same could be said of other towers...also, % based damage is in general really hard to balance...

7 - periodics are indeed IMBA. everyone and their mothers should know this =P

[jolin012]

First of all, your ideas are not at all crazy ginc (except one)

1 sure is interesting. I think it was discussed but never added - while it should be added. But I'd say timer is off until next wave's countdown begins rather than when wave is killed because in multiplayer the game goes on whoever kills the wave (and starts next countdown).

2 agreed with DDRKirby

3 Yep this is fixed - you should become a betatester - we are 5 betas ahead of you

4 Yap, these are no longer Support/Towers.

5 Also been taken care of. I think i can reveal that some got the thing you said and some got a range increase ( for the ability to micro for kills).

6 disease replaced. your idea exists too, under a different name. drowning is not underpowered. in fact in 4.0pb, it's effet is both armor ignorant and armor type ignorant, so it works well on very hard. on lower difficulties however the armor ignore doesn't help much and makes it compare weak to other towers. However - that is fixed for next ver. Your drowning idea is crazy 20% of max hp killed by a damage tower. for 1500g. isn't that a bit powerful, for example lvl 60, 1500g can take care of a 5th of the dmg that needs to be done. Well yes, that is what other towers can, such as polar voodoo enchantment corrosion roots muck windstorm nova blacksmith well trickery. but that is part opf the balance. there are 8/3 support towers that can boost the buildds total damage by a certain %. But they are limited to make every build possible to play and none overpowered.

7. and the balance for 4.0 failed. periodic was too powerful. it is nerfed.

But -

[Cisz]

Jolin012 - About 1 - He is refering to single player only. I don't thing a cheat controll needs to be implemented for single player. I don't mind single player cheating, it's fun and easy enough to spot. And in multiplayer, there is no need for a system like this either.

[Kaini]

1. Leak/Interest abuse fix

I want to see that too in the next beta!

2. List tower combinations by damage type

I don't care...

3. Overpowered towers

4. Unupgraded towers

Thats ballacing - we'll try to fix all that bugs.

5. Proc-on-kill towers

I think flamethrower works very well. But you are right they are not very good in combinations. Maybe they should 'mark' the enemy for 5 secounds.

6. Other underused towers

New disare sucks too I don't like both.

7. Periodics = lol

Fixed in the lastest private beta.

[Guest ginc]

Guess I should clarify the leak abuse fix... I don't think the interest timer needs to be paused at all in multiplayer - the only way it can be abused in multi is if all the players somehow cooperate and do it at the same time, in which case the players aren't "competing" anyway. It would just be good for single player and people who make demos.

Jolin012 - About 1 - He is refering to single player only. I don't thing a cheat controll needs to be implemented for single player. I don't mind single player cheating, it's fun and easy enough to spot. And in multiplayer, there is no need for a system like this either.

This is true, but sometimes I'll "accidentally" let one or two creeps leak when I'm being too aggressive on selling/rebuilding towers, and I feel like this should be punished

Oh, and I forgot one other suggestion:

8. Option to limit number of elements used

In addition to all the other gameplay options (difficulty, extreme, chaos, etc), maybe add an option that limits players (or the random element picker) to 4, 5 or 6 element builds? It might add some variety to multiplayer games, especially if you guys manage to balance the different 4-element builds well.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Jolin012 - About 1 - He is refering to single player only. I don't thing a cheat controll needs to be implemented for single player. I don't mind single player cheating, it's fun and easy enough to spot. And in multiplayer, there is no need for a system like this either.

This is true, but sometimes I'll "accidentally" let one or two creeps leak when I'm being too aggressive on selling/rebuilding towers, and I feel like this should be punished

yep. happens to me all the time and i feel guilty =P. This idea needs to be looked into.

8. Option to limit number of elements used

In addition to all the other gameplay options (difficulty, extreme, chaos, etc), maybe add an option that limits players (or the random element picker) to 4, 5 or 6 element builds? It might add some variety to multiplayer games, especially if you guys manage to balance the different 4-element builds well.

hmmmm maybe not -that- interesting, but would be neat.

[Cisz]

Limited number of elements is allready in the game. It's called tournament random, and it's a 4 ele sr.