Please bring interest back

[DreamlessX]

With the new resell changes and lower interest of 0.84, playing the game is getting more and more frustrating. In 0.83 and prior, to do well one would have to micromanage/resell grenade/ray towers for the first 20 or 25 waves to amass a decent interest pool, and for the rest of the game could relax a bit and figure out when was the best (or only) time to start upgrading elemental towers.

This made positioning of towers extremely important, and use of 2 pass zones imperative. It also forced the veteran player to gauge the minimum amount of towers needed to clear the wave. If you built too many or in the wrong spot, lack of a resell option punished you for all future waves.

Now the metagame is to build as many towers as possible, clear the creep wave instantly, and just sit back and kill towers. Positioning is no longer important, and it gets tiring as hell microing for an entire hour when all you're doing is building the same tower over and over and rekilling it. This is exceedingly tedious as towers do not build instantly and is (in my opinion) killing replayability due to fatigue alone.

I can't begin to imagine when builder abilities go in and all it takes to counter a spell is to kill all your towers and rebuild them. Hell, I cant even imagine casting spells with all the tower killing and rebuilding i have to do.

Please revert back to the old interest system, game is getting entirely too fatiguing for players trying to do well.

[Megadramon]

Tower reselling is part of Element TD, especially elemental towers. This change focuses more tower reselling on elemental towers rather than just using ray and grenades, and that's how the game should be played.

If you're playing AP, then you may not have many towers to choose from to clear a creep wave with since you're doing a specific build, thus constantly rebuilding the same towers. If you're playing random on the other hand, there's more variety and different methods of clearing waves since everything is random. Find the most effective way to clear a wave and then resell some stuff in preparation for the next level; use whatever positions to your advantage.

In 0.83 and prior, to do well one would have to micromanage/resell grenade/ray towers for the first 20 or 25 waves to amass a decent interest pool, and for the rest of the game could relax a bit and figure out when was the best (or only) time to start upgrading elemental towers.

This style of playing is far too easy, and does not represent a true game of Element TD if you ask me. Element TD shouldn't be that relaxed. I remember back in WC3 games were challenging because you'd always be playing competitive mode against other people. Now in SC2 there's Standard mode which is it's own metagame. You're not competition against other players, nor are you competing against yourself. The creeps in Standard mode start right after the slowest person finishes, or until the timer runs out, allowing you all the time in the world to set up, think, etc... depending on your opponents, or in some cases yourself.

With this new change, if you choose to relax, you will lose potential income. This makes the game more challenging as it should be for players who know what they're doing, and let the newer players continue on with what they were doing. Pre-0.84 I felt like Standard was just a knowledge based game. If you had a build capable of lasting to the end, only using ~20% of your total minerals, then you're set. Now with this new change, you'll need reselling skills along with knowledge to make it far in the fruit level.

[Chiquihuite]

Interest picks will be included with the "item" system. Many of the purchaseables will provide passive benefits as opposed to active spells - this gives you a choice of how aggressive or defensive you want to be in any given game. Of course, going interest will be risky if your opponents are very aggressive, but figuring that out will be part of the fun

As for the sell value picks, I have to admit I'm not really crazy about this either. I feel like it's a cool experiment, but if it becomes a mandatory pick (like interest) instead of a playstyle choice then I'd rather cut it in favor of other options.

@Mega: I think a lot of people play TDs specifically so they do NOT have to micro frantically every second of every game. Lulls in the action are in important part of the Tower Defense pacing. We need to be very careful that we're not asking the player to do too many things too often, though we can offer marginal benefits for doing more than what's necessary. You can think of the difference between a micro'ed celerity and an un-micro'ed celerity as an indicator of how we want that to play out.

Beyond that, I personally find *constantly* rebuilding and re-selling every tower you own to be incredibly tedious. It's one thing to kind of strategically resell specific towers for type advantages when you really need them. Perhaps the re-sell option can be re-worked in a way that captures the "best of both worlds", such as allowing you to 100% sell one tower per wave or something.

[Megadramon]

As for the sell value picks, I have to admit I'm not really crazy about this either. I feel like it's a cool experiment, but if it becomes a mandatory pick (like interest) instead of a playstyle choice then I'd rather cut it in favor of other options.

I personally think it's already mandatory to do well in fruit, though I've only played a couple games so far.

[Chiquihuite]

As for the sell value picks, I have to admit I'm not really crazy about this either. I feel like it's a cool experiment, but if it becomes a mandatory pick (like interest) instead of a playstyle choice then I'd rather cut it in favor of other options.

I personally think it's already mandatory to do well in fruit, though I've only played a couple games so far.

And to me, that's a problem. It'd be the same as if picking at least 2 fire elements was mandatory to be successful.

I'm all for giving people cool options, but the emphasis is definitely on the word "options".

Maybe we can look into rolling this into item choices as well?

[DreamlessX]

@ Mega. I do agree Ele TD should be about selling/reselling towers to do well. This is evidenced in first 25 waves where frantic micro of Ray towers/killing of grenades are used to catch leaks and maximizing income. Should you be forced to continue doing this throughout the game? No. Why? Because it detracts from the strategy and smart micro.

Here is a before and after scenario.

My before strategy:

Delay building of high level towers till right after interest hits. Build only in certain 2 pass zones (fastest/faster generally to maximize interest) to maximize damage. Micro of certain towers (Impetus, Celerity, Obliteration etc.). Figuring out WHEN to upgrade towers (before fast/mechanical/healing or elemental weakness waves) to clear the wave with no leaks using only the minimum amount of towers.

My after strategy:

Build all strong towers at entrance. Insta-gib wave in 8 seconds. Sell all towers. Collect interest for 15 seconds - 75 seconds. Rebuild at 7 seconds to next wave.

To me it seems like alot of the gameplay value was lost. The key point is that in the older versions, you were heavily rewarded for taking risk. Now, that reward is completely cut out, letting you play safely and rewarding that. Perhaps this is where we differ in opinion. I find the new changes VERY tedious and strategically unrewarding.

As a suggestion to the Dev team. I feel like the resolution to this issue is to simply lower the Max lives or perhaps choose a global option for the host to set max lives; eg. 50 30 10, or 1. This way, high risk high reward players need to be much much more wary and would add to the replay value immensely. Honestly, I'd like to see a 1 life sudden death mode. You mess up, you're done. This would address the 'easy mode' that Mega pointed out in which you could just sit with 20% minerals spent and not worry about leaks.

[Chiquihuite]

We actually have an "extreme" mode where leaking a single creep = loss. But nobody ever picks it

[DreamlessX]

We actually have an "extreme" mode where leaking a single creep = loss. But nobody ever picks it

You could add a box for "Choose amount of lives" Default it at 30, and have it range from 1, 15, 30, 50. This might make the live choices a bit more apparent since nobody really deviates from "Standard" mode.

[DreamlessX]

I wonder if my argument was convincing enough for Mega

[WindStrike]

As much as I am against interest, I'm also against resell, because it's apparently "mandatory." If you don't get resell, you fall behind in gold really fast. It was the same problem with interest. I suggest adding something in place of both that has as equal impact to the game as grabbing any of the elements, rather than something that has to be gotten early game, else you're screwed.

Though, resell does get screwed over in Race and Extreme modes, those are kind of less played to begin with.

[Megadramon]

I just like the fact that it changed up the gameplay in AP. I haven't played many games yet, but perhaps it can get tedious due to the fact you're playing AP with 100% resell. I guess that's a problem with this change, along with the mandatory resell that you have to get in order to succeed. Unlike AP, random mode is not tedious due to the randomness of the mode.

[DreamlessX]

I just like the fact that it changed up the gameplay in AP. I haven't played many games yet, but perhaps it can get tedious due to the fact you're playing AP with 100% resell. I guess that's a problem with this change, along with the mandatory resell that you have to get in order to succeed. Unlike AP, random mode is not tedious due to the randomness of the mode.

You're forgetting the part where all you have to do is build 10 towers at the spawn. Upgrade them to whatever you can. Nuke the wave in a few seconds. Sell. Once you do this a few times, it gets easier and easier. Tedious and NO strategy involved. You should try doing this and you'll see what I mean All that slow, fast, fastest 2 pass stuff doesn't matter anymore.

[Megadramon]

All the strategy in AP Standard mode is formed before the game even starts. There are no variable factors in Standard mode other than who finishes the creeps last, so I'd say there is really no strategy at all during the game. Strategy is predetermined along with your elements. I wouldn't base Element TD on a strategy type game. And yes, Element TD is tedious in terms of always having to sell and rebuild, at least on random, but because random is random, it lessens the burden of the game being too boring and tedious since you're offered many different elements randomly. You're judging too much of your experience of Element TD on Standard AP. Building towers to kill waves quickly is valid gameplay in competitive mode to rush opponents, and it's pretty fun too.

[Nihilus]

I play elements td for years, and for the first time I need to say, resell instead of interest killed all the fun.

[flyjum]

I play elements td for years, and for the first time I need to say, resell instead of interest killed all the fun.

Same

I have not been able to beat it in very hard in a public game

I have tried like 20 times or so

What is the point of sell if you still lose mineral value each time?

every time you sell you lose like 12% of your worth even with the upgrade.

At least make the sell percent 100% if you pick it because its useless with out it.

Reduced interest in other modes also makes it them quite a bit harder as well.

Basically no reason every to play all pick because you lose out on 2 gas worth of summons

With out interest very hard is almost impossible to beat

[Nuchu]

I play elements td for years, and for the first time I need to say, resell instead of interest killed all the fun.

Same

I have not been able to beat it in very hard in a public game

I have tried like 20 times or so

What is the point of sell if you still lose mineral value each time?

every time you sell you lose like 12% of your worth even with the upgrade.

At least make the sell percent 100% if you pick it because its useless with out it.

Reduced interest in other modes also makes it them quite a bit harder as well.

Basically no reason every to play all pick because you lose out on 2 gas worth of summons

With out interest very hard is almost impossible to beat

instead of a flat interest rate is there some sort of algorithm we could use to make interest exponential... because going for 2 or 3 interest ticks will make you a lot of money, but it also puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to number elements to play with.

lemme just ask the dev's one question... whats your ultimate goal with reselling/interest at lvl 60?

do you not want someone to fill up the level with towers at the end? do you want people to micromanage their money more throughout the game?...

im sure we could all pool together and come up with a good solution to the problem...

[Chiquihuite]

I guess I didn't state it clearly enough

Re-sell was an experiment. It's getting the axe. We hear you guys loud and clear

It may be preserved as an optional pick in the upcoming "item/spells/whatever you want to call them" mode, but it will no longer be in a balance position where it's mandatory for optimal play.

...That said, I would say our goal is for you to *not* fill up the entire board with max-rank towers. Honestly just finding a happy balance point for interest should be enough to allow for that. In the "items/spells/whateverthey'recalled" mode, interest would be available as a pick with a customer resource cost separate from element picks, but it'll be a risky choice. I suspect that making it not the default go-to best pick will do a lot to chill out its value.

[Abra]

Just 1 think to add to the discussion...

Though, removing interrest is a nice thing,.. it opens up the door to more creative playing. AND,.. it finally makes H/VH feel like... uh,.... hard... though I did like the extra interrest to just try and get as many fruit kills as I can.

But the changes to interrest between VE and VH are just... weird...

1% VE, 1.25% E, 1.5% N, 1.75% H, 2% VH.

Isn´t it just the point that, very easy, should also be, very easy?

Because,... I don't know if its intended, but, at this moment if 2 equally skilled people will get in a standard play, 1 on VE, 1 on normal... whatever the VE player does. The normal will win because he can accumulate more money.

In my Eyes, the scale should be the other way round:

2% VE, 1.75% E, 1.5% N, 1.25% H, 1% VH.

In this case,.. the very easy player will have less of a trouble keeping up with normal and hard players.

(though as I found when playing very hard... without the extra interrest, even with 2%, it becomes challenging to really efficiently get to the fruit lvl with enough thowers to get many fruitkills)

I agree with the early comment that the new interrest, in the form of, cutting the cost of reselling elemental towers also gives a nice gimmick, but without the interrest that can replenish the lost mins and make it worth while, its nothing more then that.... a gimmick... (btw.. I never tested the new interrest mechanic so the last sentence is just an opinion)

btw,.. im just ratling, I hope i did not offend people.

[DreamlessX]

Just 1 think to add to the discussion...

Though, removing interrest is a nice thing,.. it opens up the door to more creative playing. AND,.. it finally makes H/VH feel like... uh,.... hard... though I did like the extra interrest to just try and get as many fruit kills as I can.

But the changes to interrest between VE and VH are just... weird...

1% VE, 1.25% E, 1.5% N, 1.75% H, 2% VH.

Isn´t it just the point that, very easy, should also be, very easy? because, this makes it hard for a very easy player to keep up with a normal player,.. Even if that VE player plays a bit better then the normal.

I don't know if its intended, but, at this moment if 2 equally skilled people will get in a standard play, 1 on VE, 1 on normal... whatever the VE player does. The normal will win because he can accumulate more money.

In my Eyes, the scale should be the other way round:

2% VE, 1.75% E, 1.5% N, 1.25% H, 1% VH.

In this case,.. the very easy player will have less of a trouble keeping up with normal and hard players.

(though as I found when playing very hard... without the extra interrest, even with 2%, it becomes challenging to really efficiently get to the fruit lvl with enough thowers to get many fruitkills)

I agree with the early comment that the new interrest, in the form of, cutting the cost of reselling elemental towers (at the invest of 2 vespene gas) to 0 also gives a nice extra gameplay element.

btw,.. im just ratling, I hope i did not offend people.

If very hard had 1% interest you might as well rename the mode to -Impossible . As difficulties scale, monster hp increases and damage dealt by towers fall by a whopping 50%. Bounty aside, if you have half the money, deal half the damage, and have to face creep with 50% more HP, you're at 2*2*1.5 disadvantage or factor of 6 disadvantage.

Now with 2% interest the comparison goes as follows. 0.5 * 2.0* 1.5 or a factor of 1.5 disadvantage.

Obviously the numbers may be off or hypothetical, but it seems logical at the time of posting haha.

So case in point, if you're looking at it in a money comparison, very hard would be balanced if each tower was as effective as a very easy tower. However, 4 very hard towers = 1 very easy tower currently, so they need the extra money to sustain.

[Megadramon]

Just 1 think to add to the discussion...

Though, removing interrest is a nice thing,.. it opens up the door to more creative playing. AND,.. it finally makes H/VH feel like... uh,.... hard... though I did like the extra interrest to just try and get as many fruit kills as I can.

But the changes to interrest between VE and VH are just... weird...

1% VE, 1.25% E, 1.5% N, 1.75% H, 2% VH.

Isn´t it just the point that, very easy, should also be, very easy?

Because,... I don't know if its intended, but, at this moment if 2 equally skilled people will get in a standard play, 1 on VE, 1 on normal... whatever the VE player does. The normal will win because he can accumulate more money.

In my Eyes, the scale should be the other way round:

2% VE, 1.75% E, 1.5% N, 1.25% H, 1% VH.

In this case,.. the very easy player will have less of a trouble keeping up with normal and hard players.

(though as I found when playing very hard... without the extra interrest, even with 2%, it becomes challenging to really efficiently get to the fruit lvl with enough thowers to get many fruitkills)

I agree with the early comment that the new interrest, in the form of, cutting the cost of reselling elemental towers also gives a nice gimmick, but without the interrest that can replenish the lost mins and make it worth while, its nothing more then that.... a gimmick... (btw.. I never tested the new interrest mechanic so the last sentence is just an opinion)

btw,.. im just ratling, I hope i did not offend people.

If the easier difficulties provided more income, I might be inclined to start playing VE again to take advantage of the extra minerals and score higher on the fruit stage.

The way I see it, other than the difficulty, easier difficulties shouldn't provide any incentives for harder difficulty players to play on them again. If VE and the other lower difficulties provided any more advantages, it might make those difficulties broken in the hands of a skilled player.

Players should want to move on to the next level of difficulty once they think they've mastered their previous difficulty and keep climbing up.

In the "items/spells/whateverthey'recalled" mode

Isn't it the super weapon mode?

[Abra]

So I did stur up some comments.

If very hard had 1% interest you might as well rename the mode to -Impossible . As difficulties scale, monster hp increases and damage dealt by towers fall by a whopping 50%. Bounty aside, if you have half the money, deal half the damage, and have to face creep with 50% more HP, you're at 2*2*1.5 disadvantage or factor of 6 disadvantage.

I am wel aware of that, so the comment of the reversed interrest mechanics was nothing more and nothing less then to stur up this conversation.

If it were just me deciding, I would change the interrest back to before the recent changes (every difficulty, 2% + 1% from vespene). But hey, I am open for change.

If the easier difficulties provided more income, I might be inclined to start playing VE again to take advantage of the extra minerals and score higher on the fruit stage.

The way I see it, other than the difficulty, easier difficulties shouldn't provide any incentives for harder difficulty players to play on them again. If VE and the other lower difficulties provided any more advantages, it might make those difficulties broken in the hands of a skilled player.

Players should want to move on to the next level of difficulty once they think they've mastered their previous difficulty and keep climbing up.

Thou are correct. but.... that does not mean that the incoming is the problem,.. extra income = easyer game.

The problem is, that a easy player with the same interrest, gets more money because he needs lesser towers... now is that really a problem.. because most beginners will not be able to manage there towers that well.

The thing that I wanted to say is: Its not the interrest that is the problem,.. keep the interrest the same for each difficulty... but, make the point system on wave 61 even steaper, so on very easy,.. no points for a kill. on easy, very low points per kills, on normal, normal points per kill, on hard a lot of points per kill, on very hard, even more. This forces players to get on the higher difficulties, if they even want a chance on beating the more skilled players.

In that case,... VE can be used to learn the game, but can never win it. E would still have a tremendous trouble to keep up on wave 61 simply because it will earn next to no points. But atleast, it will spice up the game a bit more, because you get more incoming, a better practise for a higher difficulty and enough minerals to try different stuff without being punished for it.

If you still think I am wrong, I would be very glad to hear it.

[Megadramon]

That's an interesting proposal, increasing lower difficulty income but nerfing fruit points even more so for easier difficulties.

Keep in mind that even if this happens, easier difficulties won't gain that much of a lead over harder difficulties due to the fact that it's not possible to mass the field with high tier towers anymore. We could buff income for easier difficulties, but not so much that they can mass the field, even in the hands of a skilled player.

Honestly with this change, I don't think the legit newbies would be able to take advantage of this slight change. If you actually knew what you were doing, you should advance to the next difficulty instead of trying to gain more money from lower difficulties.

I don't think it's a good idea to buff easier difficulties too much, otherwise it'll be abused, fruit level or not. If we buff easier difficulties so much that they're able to get crazy income, even with fruit points off, that's still broken, and that's not how the game should be played. The only helpful buff a new player can receive is a drastic interest boost, and that will most definitely be abused by more skilled people.

What I'm trying to say is that if we buff the income for the easier difficulties, it shouldn't be too much; since it shouldn't be by much, legit newbies won't actually be able to take advantage of this buff. This buff would really be for people who knew what they were doing, for players who are seeking a mode to get the most money on. Legit new players won't know what they're doing, so a slight interest boost won't affect them at all.

Currently the difficulty handicaps seem alright. It adds a necessary challenge to the game without ruining the gameplay by giving the newer players the minerals to fill the field in order to beat the game. When players realize their full potential on a difficulty, they will have to move on to the next difficulty in order to achieve a higher potential and so fourth. In my eyes, ideally, the highest potential one should be able to achieve in EleTD should be on VH.

[Chiquihuite]

In the "items/spells/whateverthey'recalled" mode

Isn't it the super weapon mode?

That's what it was originally called, but with the design changes we've made already, that name doesn't really fit anymore. A passive interest increase isn't exactly a "super weapon" for example.

[haupty]

Re-sell was an experiment. It's getting the axe. We hear you guys loud and clear

Glad to hear this, I've been playing ele TD since way back when there were sun/moon/ tidal and even rainbow towers and I love it. The type of game-play interest brings I find very enjoyable. Being an investment ad visor and tax accountant I really like the "making money" metagame, but with resell it seemed like so much busy work. So I'm glad to hear this, also I totally see where you are coming from about making interest a choice, it makes sense that you don't want to make it practically mandatory, and I've done several games where i filled the map with towers so I see where you are coming from with that. Good luck with the balancing and I am happy to try out experiments for you guys (Like his whole resell thing) as I know the game is getting better for it. For example, with 2 elements freed up, I finally made a successful periodic table build! so yeah, keep up the good effort.