Element Shakeup Round 2

[Karawasa]

Alright, the time has come where all the new abilities/towers have been brainstormed (except the last, potentially). Now we can decide what is game making, how to reorder the elements that makeup towers, and what names to give towers/abilities.

Ain't no doubt about it, this is THE thread to pay attention to for the time being.

I'll get the ball rolling by posting all the needed information.

Towers Kept:

Duals:

[*]Magic - DF[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Poison - DW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Lava - EF[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Sun - FN[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Steam - FW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Well - NW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Life - NL[/*:m:22n4d561]

Triples:

[*]Crypt - DEN[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Enchantment - DFL[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Summoning - DFN[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Acid - DFW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Flesh Golem - ENW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Nova - FLN[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Tornado - FLW[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Ice (can be renamed of course) - ???[/*:m:22n4d561]

Please note that the element makeup of the "kept," towers is also up for rearranging.

New Towers:

Duals:

[*]Frostbite - Freezes a unit for X seconds. If that unit is attacked while frozen, it receives double damage and is unfrozen[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Mortar - Long range AoE tower with minimum attack range[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Hand of Life - A tower that deals more damage if the current hp% of creep is stronger[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Berserk - Can cast Berserk, gaining attack speed and damage for X seconds[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Spout - When this tower attacks (with X% chance), the target will be launched into the air, dealing X damage to surrounding units when it lands[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Replicate - Creates a replica (may have X/X1/X2 replicas at one time) of targeted tower that lasts X seconds[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Time Warp - X second after this tower attacks a creep, that creep will be teleported back to where it was when it got attacked. X% chance of firing[/*:m:22n4d561]

Triples:

[*]Impetus - Gives strength to attacks, causing them to deal greater damage the further away the target is[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Stackable Release - Tower has some ability that is pretty good. Every X attacks actually "charges up," the ability and so it gets better every X attacks until you choose to use it[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Reflection - Towers can link into each other, getting damage bonus and combining their attack into one[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Teleport - Blink but for structures[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Rupture - When casted on creep, will speed it up. Creep will take damage based on how fast it is moving[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Needs Name - A line based AoE slow/DoT[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Greed - A tower that gives gold to the player per attack, based on how much damage it does[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Rage - Tower gains attack speed for every attack, after X seconds of not attacking it loses this bonus[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Chain Lightning - Casts chain lightning that increases in damage every bounce (as opposed to decrease), after a few bounces it starts selecting random creeps to bounce to[/*:m:22n4d561]

[*]Maledict - Curses a unit, dealing damage to it every X seconds based on how much HP it has lost (since the curse started)[/*:m:22n4d561]

Names for the "new," abilities are of course in need of changing. Also, names (and stats) for new towers to host them are also in need of brainstorming.

Here comes the fun part...

[Cisz]

Hey, this is great info. No we get to put the puzzle together.

Apparently I have to manage a certain tournament today, but the term ends on monday.

[Cisz]

Ice should be a tripple now, right? 4 aoe slows, all tripples. Or is ice no longer an aoe slow?

[Karawasa]

Alright, I have reordered the list to convert Ice to triple status. Time Warp tower was downgraded to dual (it seemed to be the weakest "new," triple).

[echinodermata]

It's a stretch, but here goes:

Soul Reaper - DL

Possesion - DN

Mortar - EL

Illusion - FL

Frostbite - WL

Hand of Life - NE

Time Warp - WE

[Guest lumber_of_the_beast]

Tower elements still needing assignment:

Duals:

DL

DN

EL

EN

EW

FL

LW

Triples:

DEL

DEW

DLN

DLW

DNW

EFL

EFN

EFW

ELN

ELW

FNW

LNW

My picks coming soon.

[Karawasa]

Tower elements still needing assignment:

Remember, towers that were kept are also up for reassignment.

Looking forward to the picks.

[Guest lumber_of_the_beast]

Tower elements still needing assignment:

Remember, towers that were kept are also up for reassignment.

Looking forward to the picks.

Oh, I know. Just felt it might be handy to have that.

Anyway, I have selected the triples in accordance with Cisz's rather lengthy dissertation on how to ensure balance. Because Cisz is smarter than I am. Also, this is based on the idea that the Sequencer and Greed towers are gonna be dead sexy.

DE* -- Steam (Smog/Toxic/Radioactive)

DF -- Tech

DL -- Possession

DN -- Soul Reaper

DW -- Poison

EF -- Lava

EL -- Mortar

EN -- Hand of Life

EW -- Time Warp

FL -- Illusion

FN* -- Well (Rage/Berserk/Assault?)

FW -- Magic

LN -- Life

LW* -- Frostbite (Give it a chance to break free on damage, that decreases by level. And see if you can get it to only attack unfrozen creeps if possible.)

NW -- Sun (Recolor the effect, and call it Stream/Wave/Waterfall. Also, a wider AoE couldn't hurt.)

DEF -- Flamethrower

DEL -- Summoning

DEN -- Crypt

DEW -- Rupture

DFL* -- Enchantment

DFN -- Meteorite

DFW* -- Tornado

DLN* -- Greed (Renewing/Recycling)

DLW -- Stackable Release

DNW* -- Rot (Rotting/Decomposing)

EFL* -- Ice (Shining/Blinding tower, blinds creeps so they can't see where they're going and have to move more carefully)

EFN -- Rage

EFW* -- Sequencer (Replay/Rewind)

ELN* -- Nova (Seismic/Earthquake)

ELW -- Teleport

ENW* -- Acid

FLN -- Chain Lightning

FLW -- Reflection

FNW -- Flesh Golem

LNW -- Impetus

EDIT: Swapped Summoning and Meteorite, Rage and Flesh Golem.

EDIT 2: Gave some renaming suggestions.

EDIT 3: Lots of Duals moved. Put asterisks next to the critical point towers.

[echinodermata]

Glad to see that we're pretty much on the same page for duals I'll get my triples suggestions soon.

[Cisz]

Newsflash

I'm totally atm. MagicalHacker has found a new tower distribution. It's still work in progress, but might be an improvement on my version. It relies heavily on 3 different strong duals as a base.

It looks like this:

4-Element-builds

Pts    Elements

4    ldwf
4    ldwn
4    ldwe
4    ldfn
4    ldfe
4    ldne
4    lwfn
4    lwfe
4    lwne
4    lfne
4    dwfn
4    dwfe
4    dwne
4    dfne
4    wfne

5-Element-builds

Pts    Elements

8    ldwfn
8    ldwfe
8    ldwne
8    ldfne
8    lwfne
8    dwfne

The towers relative position is this:

Three duals that don't share any elements, lets say..

Dual 1 ld

Dual 2 wf

Dual 3 ne

They are the strongest towers, each worth 2 points.

And 8 triples, each worth 1 point, are made of all possible combinations of "one element of each of the aforementioned duals", which are..

Triple 1 lfn

Triple 2 lfe

Triple 3 lwn

Triple 4 lwe

Triple 5 dfn

Triple 6 dfe

Triple 7 dwn

Triple 8 dwe

..in this example. The actual elements can be exchanged as much as you like, as long as the relative position of the towers is retained.

The triples relative position is identical to my solution, so what he does is to add 3 duals worth twice a triple each, and ends up with equal builds.

This is very early stage, and maybe he will come up with an even better sollution. This current suggestion has three disadvantages: 11 towers instead of 8 need to be strong, some of them need to be twice as strong, and strong duals might lead to a very predictable early game on pick. The main advantage is ofc this: All 4 element builds are equal and all 5 element builds are equal.

If 5 element builds get to strong compared to 4 element builds needs to examined more closely. It might not be such a problem, as duals have 3 levels and getting a dual to max level takes away many of your options.

So what do you think - sounds like an improvement?

[Guest lumber_of_the_beast]

Well, I personally like it, but it does mean that we'd have to figure out what the three strongest duals are. Considering that the critical duals in my build would be DE (Tech), FN (Sun), and LW (Frostbite), I probably need to move things around a bit.

[Guest MasterTenor]

Well, I personally like it, but it does mean that we'd have to figure out what the three strongest duals are. Considering that the critical duals in my build would be DE (Tech), FN (Sun), and LW (Frostbite), I probably need to move things around a bit.

As far as figuring out what the strongest duals should be, Cisz's suggestion is perfect: opposite elements are the strongest dual towers.

So let's assign towers to all of the relevant combos. Note that I will be mixing things up a little because having steam as our strong dual doesn't exactly work.

Strong Duals:

LD -- Soul Reaper

WF -- Frostbite

NE -- Hand of Life

Strong Triples:

Triple 1 lfn -- Nova (Support #1)

Triple 2 lfe -- Chain Lightning (Damage #1)

Triple 3 lwn -- Storm (Support #2)

Triple 4 lwe -- Reflection (Damage #2)

Triple 5 dfn -- Greed (Damage #3)

Triple 6 dfe -- Flamethrower (Damage #4)

Triple 7 dwn -- Rot (Support #3)

Triple 8 dwe -- Sludge (replacing Ice???) (Support #4)

There's a way it could be done. It shakes things up a bit element wise -- Steam would be LW, and storm is now LWN. Greed replaced Summoning, which could be put in DLN (replacing Undead).

Let me know what you think!

[Cisz]

My first idea was to make the dual the aoe slows and the tripples the armour reducers, speed increasers, damage boosters, bounty raisers, and such.

This would lead to a very aoe slowed map, as there is no 4 element build w/o an aoe slow.

Suggested duals:

ld Cold (like ice is in 3.0)

wf Storm

ne Root or nova (like nova is in 3.0)

Those dual towers are meant to decidingly influence the game, but since a dual is available very early, they need to have little damage. So this wf-storm is nothing like the 3.0-storm. It can't solo at all. Same with root/nova.

The maximum a player could have of those strong duals looks like this:

1 x level 3 and 1 x level 2 - 10 picks required (4 element build; leads to no good triples)

or

2 x level 2 and 1 x level 1 - 10 picks required (6 element build; leads to all good triples, level 1 only)

The maximum aoe slow a player could have is level 3 and level 2 stacking or 2 x level 2 plus level 1 stacking. The second has to be weaker, as it includes all good triples on level 1.

So the maximum speed reduction is achieved by lv3 + lv2. If the maximum speed reduction of aoe is to be about 70% (dunno if we have a value for that now), the values could be like this:

Lv. 1 - 9% reduction

Lv. 2 - 18% reduction

Lv. 3 - 52% reduction

This only sounds high, as you can never have more than one level 3 and one level 2, due to the position in the builds. Maximum aoe slow with 4 element build is 70% and with 6 element build 45%.

There has to be a mayor jump from level 2 to level 3, to make a 6 element builds aoe slow significantly weaker, to balance out the available triples. This will also take care of the "aoe slow everywhere" effect, because only if you put 6 picks into aoe slow, you will get the strong levels.

Sounds good?

[Karawasa]

Not sure what I think about that. I'd prefer to keep the AoE slows within the triples, either we can figure out what three duals should be super game making, or just stick with Cisz'z original idea.

The reason I am hesitant, is that this proposed three AoE slowing duals would really be a great upheaval to the game. Not sure if people will like it, as triples have always been the preferred long term tower solution. More importantly though, I'm not sure how much more difficult it will be to balance.

[Guest lumber_of_the_beast]

I agree with Karawasa; keep the AoE slows as triples.

And MasterTenor, I wasn't talking about where the duals would be located; I've already figured that out, at least as it applies to my setup. I'm talking about which duals would be put in those critical locations. And not one of those Damage Towers you have identified as good is actually good; the Pure Elemental towers surpass them all. Well, Greed is good, but I don't think it'll be a damage tower.

[Guest MasterTenor]

^^ Would you rather have all 8 triples be support of some kind? We could go with this then...

Note that I still think the idea of opposing elements as the strong duals is neat. But I realize that my opinion isn't necessarily the opinion of the whole group, so this will be my last post in favor of it unless others agree with me.

LD -- Soul Reaper

WF -- Frostbite

NE -- Hand of Life

Triple 1 lfn -- Nova

Triple 2 lfe -- Enchantment

Triple 3 lwn -- Storm

Triple 4 lwe -- Ice?

Triple 5 dfn -- Greed (we'll assume it will be more support and less damage for now)

Triple 6 dfe -- Sequencer

Triple 7 dwn -- Rot

Triple 8 dwe -- Acid

That leaves all of the damage dealing towers to other combos, allowing the pure towers to be the main damaging force.

[Guest AlienFromBeyond]

Alright, the time has come where all the new abilities/towers have been brainstormed (except the last, potentially).

Sequencer

You mean this tower when you say last one? Frankly, I'm still kind of confused about how it would work. It seems kind of like Echo on the Time Cleric from EotA (so sue me for referencing the map my clan is about ). Unless it affects an AoE or can change targets quickly, I don't see it being too useful, or far too useful. Why not a Voodoo tower? Have it use Share Pain, but with over 100% share, if that's possible.

Will think about how to align towers element-wise after I get some sleep and can put some thought into it.

[Cisz]

I'm not giving up on the 3 duals/8 triples as easily.

I hit troubles with a certain 6 element build, which looked to strong compared to a non triple 4 element build, but think I can avoid it now. (@Karawasa - we talked about it on the chat, but I think I have a sollution for this scenario.)

And I want good arguments about what's so bad to have all builds more or less equal. I'm not entirely done with how to make it work, but it sounds very promising. @lumber_of_the_beast - "I agree with Karawasa; keep the AoE slows as triples." - Why? Ice never was a triple, but didn't cause to much problems so far. Explain please.

One possible scenarion with the 3 duals/8 triples distribution is to make the three game deciding duals of the same kind, say aoe slow, as different kinds of support are harder to balance properly imo.

It looks like this:

Dual lv1 - 20% single target slow

Dual lv2 - 20% aoe slow

Dual lv3 - 50% aoe slow

The maximum possible aoe slow in this suggestion is 70% with this (and it can be lowerd ofc if that's to high).

Most normal builds that have some elements on level two would give you one or two level 2 strong duals, so we get alot of 20% and 40% aoe slow builds. There would be at least one aoe slow in every 4 element build and at least two in every 5 element build, but not of level 3 if you don't really invest for it. And again, there is no way to get higher than one lv3 and one lv2, which is max aoe slow.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

One step back: It should be quite possible to make the strong duals something like one aoe slow (say storm), one armour reducer (say acid) and one other, say gold. But I imagine this harder to balance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even further back: We could either go for the 2 duals /8 triples or stick with the 8 triples. But we should do so for good reasons.

This is the list for 4 element builds with the 8 triples solution:

• 01 S1, A1

02 A1, ?1

03 S4, A1

04

05 S4, ?2

06 S3, S4

07 S2, ?1

08

09 S3, ?1

10 S3, A2

11 S1, S2

12 S1, ?2

13

14 A2, ?2

15 S2, A2

• (S is aoe slow, 4 of them; A is armour reducer, 2 of them; ? is other, 2 of them)

And this is a rough draft of the dual/triple with all duals beeing aoe slow:

02 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

03 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

04 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

05 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

06 2 aoe slows, no triples

07 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

08 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

09 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

10 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

11 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

12 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

13 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

14 1 aoe slow, 2 triples

15 2 aoe slows, no triples

If used with duals as aoe slows, the second sollution looks more boring and easier to balance. And it has no weak build anymore.

So, what do you think?

[Guest mrchak]

I don't like the idea of Having to upgrade a dual to get AOE slowing. If you play random (like I always do for example) The chances of randomly getting Lv2 in one of the 3 slowing towers is pretty slim.

So if we're going to have AOE slow, it should be lv1 duals or lv1 triples.

[MagicalHacker]

I've created a simple tool to evaluate power distributions among the different towers. Find it at http://www.redlizard.nl/tower_distribution.php.

You can award points to certain towers, press submit, and the tool will generate statistics on the strength of the possible picks. When awarding points, be aware of the fact that the point values of multiple levels of a single tower do NOT stack; if you award 1 point to a level 1 fw tower, and 2 to a level 2 fw tower, when the player picks f and w on level 2, that will count as 2 points, not 3.

The standard deviation, as displayed by the tool, is a measure of the strength variation between the possible builds. You want to keep it as low as possible. If the maximum strength and minimum strength are equal, the standard deviation is 0.

Go ahead and play with it

[Cisz]

Here is an example of such a distribution that gets pretty even values:

>> Click me <<

The weaker builds are the ones that level elements without getting any multi element tower higher, eg. getting the elements for a tripple to lv2, and they don't lead to a high level dual.

[Cisz]

I don't like the idea of Having to upgrade a dual to get AOE slowing. If you play random (like I always do for example) The chances of randomly getting Lv2 in one of the 3 slowing towers is pretty slim.

So if we're going to have AOE slow, it should be lv1 duals or lv1 triples.

Sorry, I totally missed your post.

Thats actually not true. There is no way to get more than 3 elements w/o having one of the following towers: ld, wf, ne. And every 4, 5 and 6 element build has at least one of them.

And likewise there is no way to get more than three elements to level 2 w/o having one of said duals on level 2.

So only if you have one element of each dual on level 1 or 0 over the entire game, you play w/o aoe slow. There are 15 groups of builds with only level 1 or 0 in three elements for the entire game, and of those only 8 fullfill the requirements to not having any aoe slow.

So how often did you have a build with only three elements on level 2/3? And of those, still close to half of them have the duals in question on level 2 minimum.

Take a look at this: >> All builds and if they would have aoe slow << You will notice that the big mayority has at least one level of aoe slow.

You would ofc get the aoe slow considerably later in the game.

What du you think?

[Guest MasterTenor]

Cisz, are we approaching a point where every build is too similar in terms of how it works?

As far as effectiveness and relative power, I think we should try to get the builds as close as possible. But not if we have to sacrifice diversity -- if every build utilizes the same strategy (aoe slows, etc) then we will lose the idea of good tower placement (either one-pass or two-pass will always be better because each build works exactly the same).

That's overstated, but we could approach that situation someday.

[Guest lumber_of_the_beast]

@lumber_of_the_beast - "I agree with Karawasa; keep the AoE slows as triples." - Why? Ice never was a triple, but didn't cause to much problems so far. Explain please.

AoE slows have always been a key part of EleTD; quite possibly the most important towers available. Thus, they should be kept as triples, to limit access to them. You shouldn't be able to get every good tower with a single build, like lwfd-n had.

[Cisz]

Cisz, are we approaching a point where every build is too similar in terms of how it works?

As far as effectiveness and relative power, I think we should try to get the builds as close as possible. But not if we have to sacrifice diversity (..)

Good call. So you opt for the hard way, to make different towers do the balance?

The "3 duals as aoe slows" would not lead to strong aoe slow all around, but to have every build with 4 or more towers have like 20% or 40% or aoe slowing strength. That's far less aoe power than lfwd or lfwn has now, and can be dropped more if needed. Only if you get a aoe slow dual to level 3, it will make your build a maximum slowing strength one.

But I can understand if this still looks a litle to homogenous to you..

, . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . ,

AoE slows have always been a key part of EleTD; quite possibly the most important towers available. Thus, they should be kept as triples, to limit access to them.

What's harder to get - a level 2 tripple (aka maxed out) or a level 3 dual? I would think that killing 2 level 3 elements is quite a task. And a maxed dual gives you far less available towers. I even suggested to make level one of them single target slow only, so you have to get them to level 2 before aoe slow even starts. So I'd say, it's only easy to get a level 1 dual, a maxed one is harder and more limiting than a maxed triple. Do you agree?

You shouldn't be able to get every good tower with a single build, like lwfd-n had.

Look at this:

Dual 1 - ld

Dual 2 - fw

Dual 3 - ne

(Of course those could be other elements, as long as they are not shared among the duals.) Now try to get them all. And remember:

Dual lv1 - 20% single target slow

Dual lv2 - 20% aoe slow

Dual lv3 - 50% aoe slow

What is the best you can get? Can you do Better than 70%?

Now the second part, this are the strong triples for this distribution:

lfn, lfe, lwn, lwe, dfn, dfe, dwn, dwe

If you max out slow, how many triples do you get? Of what level? More than one on lv1?

So lumber - what do you think of that trick?