Comet and Immortal Tower Balance Suggestions

[Cypher]

I've been playing elements quite alot recently and I've noticed something. Alot of people are using arranged builds based on the immortal tower and the comet tower. The simplest way to know when something is overpowered is just watching the tendencies of the players. If there's a shortcut people almost always take it, and the shortcut in Elements right now seem to be in the hail and immortal towers.

Complaints:

Hail towers are simply too good at too many things; they're single target damage, spread damage, high speed, and long range. They're so effective they even perform well on earth rounds, their opposing element. On normal difficulty building straight to comet towers has become equivalent to an "I win button".

Immortal towers reward too many lives and trivialize survival. Players can simply ignore the poor damage and mass build these towers knowing that anything that passes through is going to give the life back and leaks become almost meaningless. The poor damage makes them not exactly an "I win button" but their healing mechanic makes them something akin to an "I won't lose button".

My frustration comes from the fact that I play the game on very hard and random and it's frustrating when I outlast everyone but the cheese players. Some of these players may justify playing that way as simply going for a high score, and for that reason I think removing the most fruit points category from the -rank command would encourage people to play the game rather than exploit and point hunt.

The following ideas aren't meant to be taken all together, and the harshness of some of the nerfs would certainly justify improving these towers in other ways that I won't bother suggesting in this post.

Here are my thoughts:

Hail Tower - Change the buff to instead be a passive 25% chance to fire 3 projectiles, 50% chance to fire 2 projectiles, 25% chance to fire 1 projectile

Hail Tower - Leave the buff mechanic as is but reduce the damage of each shot

Hail Tower - Leave the buff mechanic as is but reduce it's duration

Hail Tower - Change the range to 16 with the buff increasing range to 22 with the same cooldown it currently uses

Hail Tower - Change the speed to .66 with the buff increasing speed to .31 with the same cooldown it currently uses

Immortal Tower - Instead of using a hard calculation for life returns have it be a chance per kill, 35% for tier 1, 40% for tier 2, 45% for tier 3

Immortal Tower - Cap the number of bonus lives allowed to 60 total

Immortal Tower - Change bonus lives beyond 50 to be temporary and expire after every wave.

Immortal Tower - Change the life return to a progressively steeper requirement per life in a given round. For example, 1st life requires one kill, 2nd life requires 2 kills, 3rd life requires 3 kills (at this point 6 kills = 3 lives) this total would need to be tracked and shared amongst all life towers owned by a player. To address the possibility of owning different numbers of tier 1-3 versions at any given time have the bonus ignore tower rank and simply count towers of the type. The required kill increment to be reset after every wave.

[Megadramon]

When talking about balancing, it's important to entail what difficulty the balance issue is on. Though I agree Comet Towers are pretty powerful, it's not necessarily the I win tower on Very Hard (I actually forget if this is the case, I haven't played in a while). As for Immortal Towers, I personally have never used this tower on Very Hard. I don't think the low damage output is worth the extra lives.

[Cypher]

When talking about balancing, it's important to entail what difficulty the balance issue is on. Though I agree Comet Towers are pretty powerful, it's not necessarily the I win tower on Very Hard (I actually forget if this is the case, I haven't played in a while). As for Immortal Towers, I personally have never used this tower on Very Hard. I don't think the low damage output is worth the extra lives.

First I'd like to say that I sincerely thank you for your reply, I'm very interested to hear other's opinions on this subject whether they agree with me or not.

I'm not a dev so I wouldn't know, but isn't difficulty irrelevant when balancing between towers? At issue isn't whether it performs fairly on very hard or very easy but how it performs compared to other towers. If the hail tower is overpowered on normal, but not an "I win button" on very hard, does that mean it isn't overpowered when compared to an ephemeral tower? To put it another way, if we agree that the hail tower is better than it's counterparts on normal, isn't it still better than the same towers on very hard since the towers haven't changed but the creeps did?

I hardly ever use the life towers myself on any difficulty, but I have been stuck with light / nature for my first 2 elements and have dabbled with them on occasion and they're quite powerful on any difficulty. They still repair leaks too easily. The problem on very hard isn't stockpiling lives, it's getting back up to 50 so effortlessly. On very hard every life counts, you can't afford to have nail biting coin flips at the maze exit every other wave. Soon you'll have 30 lives on wave 40 and your chances of making the fruit round become very grim. This isn't the case with the life tower, just let em on through life tower will repair it over the next wave or two. You didn't manage your element match ups right and you have a ton of light towers when that earth wave comes? No big deal you'll take a dozen deaths but life towers will patch that up while your light towers get back to work on more favorable match ups. Element TD has been described as a "Survivor Tower Defense" and life towers seem to trivialize that aspect of the game.

[Megadramon]

Well what I mean with difficulty is that strategies on easier difficulties will most likely not work on harder difficulties due to creeps and fruits being significantly stronger. There's a strategy involving the Immortal Tower where you just mass those for late game or something like that and you'll have a plethora of lives... I remember someone having like over 200 lives doing that strategy. If you try that strategy on VH, you're bound to lose as it won't work. Things work differently on different difficulty is what I'm trying to say. Your complaint with Comet and Immortal Towers may not be an issue with other difficulties.

As for tower comparisons, as in how towers are compared to others on all difficulties. Every tower is different, and every tower deals it's damage differently. Some towers are bound to out preform others due to how versatile they are. The hard part about this game is how to use the most of your towers. Some towers are made easy to use, and some were made hard to use, but still effective if used properly. If a tower is still crappy no matter how you use it, then it most likely needs tweaking. The game is still in beta, so if you have a complaint about towers being too weak, then it can be considered a valid input. As for Comet Towers being powerful, I think they were meant to be powerful with relative ease. As for why would you pick Ephemeral over Comet when you have access to both? Who knows... maybe the creeps you were killing had traits that helped them resist the way Comet towers dealt damage such as perhaps Illusions, or Shields.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Comet Tower for example is a main damage dealer type tower. Some towers do high damage to specific types of creeps, while Comet is able to do high damage to a broader range of creeps. Why make towers that are only good against specific waves while a tower like Comet is good against a wider range of creeps? Maybe for diversity, dynamics, difficulty, experimental replay value. I'm sure every tower has it's use, and if it's completely useless, then it needs to get buffed or changed. Comet tower's role was most likely to provide a main sorrce of damage while you may have different types of towers to handle with different types of creeps.

[Cypher]

Well what I mean with difficulty is that strategies on easier difficulties will most likely not work on harder difficulties due to creeps and fruits being significantly stronger. There's a strategy involving the Immortal Tower where you just mass those for late game or something like that and you'll have a plethora of lives... I remember someone having like over 200 lives doing that strategy. If you try that strategy on VH, you're bound to lose as it won't work. Things work differently on different difficulty is what I'm trying to say. Your complaint with Comet and Immortal Towers may not be an issue with other difficulties.

You've missed my point about trivializing survival. To try to explain it again without repeating myself.. we're playing a very hard game, neither of us is playing perfect and we both lose 30+ lives by wave 50, pretty easy to imagine. Every life is 2% of your total health, if you arrange to build around life towers (not JUST life towers) you can quite easily still have 100% health while someone playing an otherwise equal game is at 40% health if not eliminated all together. I won't mention what happens on normal difficulty since you've already pointed out how unbalanced they are in that case.

As for tower comparisons, as in how towers are compared to others on all difficulties. Every tower is different, and every tower deals it's damage differently. Some towers are bound to out preform others due to how versatile they are. The hard part about this game is how to use the most of your towers. Some towers are made easy to use, and some were made hard to use, but still effective if used properly.

I'm unconvinced by the argument that comet towers are meant to outperform other towers with the same cost and elemental requirements, the fact that every tower costs the same suggests the intention of equality. Also, simplicity of use is not the way to measure a tower's potential. I have no problem with some towers being simple to use, it's just as obvious where to put a quake tower as it is a hail tower and I'm not complaining about the quake tower.

If a tower is still crappy no matter how you use it, then it most likely needs tweaking. The game is still in beta, so if you have a complaint about towers being too weak, then it can be considered a valid input.

You have inverted my argument. I made no complaint about any tower being too weak, in fact I believe improving others to match the power of hail / comet towers would be a colossal mistake. Also, pointing out that a tower is too powerful isn't valid input?

As for Comet Towers being powerful, I think they were meant to be powerful with relative ease. As for why would you pick Ephemeral over Comet when you have access to both? Who knows... maybe the creeps you were killing had traits that helped them resist the way Comet towers dealt damage such as perhaps Illusions, or Shields.

That's my point, there is no trait that the comet tower is unable to handle. They outdamage image / undead / healing, and fast / mechanical don't allow creeps to escape their 22 range. Any other tower has difficulty overcoming something. A laser tower can be dodged by fast / mechanical and a celerity tower lacks the speed to overcome image / undead / healing while a comet tower shrugs it all off.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Comet Tower for example is a main damage dealer type tower. Some towers do high damage to specific types of creeps, while Comet is able to do high damage to a broader range of creeps. Why make towers that are only good against specific waves while a tower like Comet is good against a wider range of creeps? Maybe for diversity, dynamics, difficulty, experimental replay value. I'm sure every tower has it's use, and if it's completely useless, then it needs to get buffed or changed. Comet tower's role was most likely to provide a main sorrce of damage while you may have different types of towers to handle with different types of creeps.

You're downplaying both the extent of the comet tower's advantage and it's significance. Every tower does have a use. Every tower has strengths and weaknesses that balance them. The problem is that the hail / comet tower is lacking in weaknesses.

[bdwolf]

I will say that the immortal tower super life strategy doesn't really work out too well on hard and very hard (especially very hard). It becomes a guessing game and your lives bounce around so much, that sometimes you lose and sometimes you stay alive during certain rounds (namely fires, and undead rounds). Having played lots of combinations, immortal tower strat may be just a bit better than average, but for the most part, it feels about the same as most others.

As for Comet/hail. Yeah, these are slightly overtuned. And it's not so much the tower itself as it is it's combination with trickery lvl3. Getting an 80 second tower for the low low cost of 1900, especially with hails (3500), effectively doubles your towers. And with the cooldown on trickery's being low enough that with 4 towers, you can guarantee 4 doubles up at a time... well, you essentially get 9 towers (this includes the trickery itself) for the cost of 4+trickery. I'm not sure how to fix this though. Perhaps uncoupling the dark requirement from hails and adding a different element if that's at all possible. Or straight nerfing the trickery tower perhaps. Hard to say. All I can say is that with comet/hail + trickery I can easily get to fruit lvl and maybe lose 1 life on hard without trying (the strat easily deals with earth rounds) and still get 300+ fruit points while maximizing the interest savings.

I don't feel that it's the range or damage of the hail tower at all either, rather it may just be the number of additions it gets from it's buffs. instead of 5 perhaps 4 is the simple balance it needs. I think a couple different solutions could be tested.

[Cypher]

You bring up an excellent point about the trickery towers working with comet towers. Honestly though I think the problem is still the hail tower not so much the trickery tower. Copy towers, as I call that family, are really on par with the damage buff and speed buff families. When you think about it a fountain tower giving +120% attack speed or a foundry tower giving +120% damage effectively turns one tower into 2.2 towers for the buff duration just done in a different way. If anything the copy towers are less powerful because you don't have complete control of the clone's placement. That said though you're absolutely right about copy + hail, the way I see it you're multiplying the imbalance by 2.2x and it becomes very obvious. One of my first thoughts on a balance suggestion was to make the hail tower not able to be copied but that didn't seem fair to the clone tower and the hail tower by itself was still enough of an issue.

[Karawasa]

I will look into Hail Tower. Immortal is fine in my opinion.

[Cypher]

I will look into Hail Tower. Immortal is fine in my opinion.

Fair enough, thanks for replying Kara hope a new version is out soon I'm looking forward to it.