Interest in the first 5 waves

[Falco2112]

It would be better if there is NO interest the first 5 waves, in the mode when it costs no lifes the first 5 waves.

Now it is possible to save minerals forever, when all other players quit or were dropped due bad connection.

[WindStrike]

As noted in every challenge or tournament on this site, any form of excessive interest abuse (aka, in a single-player game, where no one else can screw you up) would disqualify the replay. Excessive interest abuse means intentionally leaking waves for interest abuse, and this would count as thus. Running the last creep all the way to the end of the maze without leaking is the most you can do with interest abuse and still be alright for a replay.

[Falco2112]

@Windstrike

Thanks for your reply. But I was not talking about a challenge or tournament on this site.

I play Element TD within StarCraft 2.

In SC2 it is not really motivating for other (new) players if they see someone who has an enormous fruitscore, while they can't reach 500 points themselves.

I assume it was never the intention of the maker of the program to make abuse with interest, so therefore I see it as a bug.

By never giving interest the first 5 waves, this problem is simply solved. Normaly the maximum interest in the first 5 waves is very small, so you won't miss it.

And for the challenge or tournament on this site, you won't have to check for possible abuse anymore.

Looks like a win-win situation to me

[WindStrike]

Although I do rack up a total of probably 20 to 30 interest in most multiplayer games off the first 5 waves, my way of doing that is something that I'm personally against in the game (except in random mode where you may have to do it just to survive). Effectively, I end up with 10% more minerals than everyone else in the game from the first 5 waves, which steadily grows until it's about double in the end.

Honestly, what I think should happen is 60 seconds after starting a wave, the next one should automatically go off if no one has finished the wave by then. Not casual mode, it'd still be that when someone finishes the wave, the countdown for the next wave goes off to its 3 seconds or whatever it is. But if no one has finished the wave 60 seconds after it's finished spawning, the next one goes off. This would prevent any infinite interest abuse in the first 5 waves because once 5 minutes have passed, you can start losing lives.

Or we can simply lose interest in the first 5 waves. I dunno, lemme run a few tests, which I'll do tomorrow (aka, after I do a bunch of schoolwork today).

Also, the tournaments and challenges on this site use SC2. It's just that no one seems to go to this site anymore save for a few people.

[ender]

how can you get 20 30 interest in first 5 waves. unless you play casual, in competitive there is always 1 person who rushes the wave so much that you can't sell and rebuild or you will get overrun by level 6 when the life starts to leak.

if you play with others witch is required to get a score recorded, is 99% of the time competitive and someone rushes or overbuilds so the wave is cleared too fast for sell/rebuild. i found that in comp there is no point in doing economy, you can either be the one that rushes overbuilds, and make others leak for economy they make, or make the economy useless as the game finishes in 30 min or less and the amount of interest is insignificant, or be the one that does economy and leaks, or at best does a insignificant amount of $ at the end from economy and interest.

more disturbing than cheating, witch is anyway frowned upon, and not accepted for tournaments, is the fact that periodic so op to other pures(ok it may be an overstatement but combine with the following they are better than a pure), also getting 2 x all elem and skip water or nature(either 2 d 2 l 2 f 2 e 2 n 1 w, or 1 n 2 w), is such a in imbalanced build that no matter what you play against you will win, by being last survivor and by fruit points, in any difficulty.

i mean i tried some builds and got the basics of this game, and from what i have tested, going all 8 support (slow and amplify dmg) and all the support for towers(clone, well, forge) even level 1 for triples, or 2 for doubles, is giving you too much of an edge. i have beat people that had 125k net vs my 85k net worth, they went 3 x elem lvl 3, getting 1 dmg double dmg tower like E+D and 1 support like forge E+F, and 4 pures either E or F, and me with full slow and amp dmg with a net worth only 70% of his, only 2 periodic, i went like 2x the fruit score, and lasted almost 2 times more waves.

then even against people that use 4 support towers(slow and amp dmg like max lvl either nature or water towers) and get 2 periodic, and spam 1 dmg triple tower, and i win also by getting all the support towers to cover the range that my periodic can get. so support towers are op even at lvl 1, making the build for lvl 2 elem and 1 elem lvl 1 too good, and making all others obsolete.

ofc people here may argue that there are better ways but, really i've seen alot of builds and if you place the slow amp dmg towers correctly and get the right triples for dmg, this build is too good, and my final money vary from 85k for a fast/bad/normal run, to 115k for a more economy run/noone rushing/very hard/not competitive.

the idea is that slow/amp towers(witch are 8, 4 that have nature in them. 4 that have water in them) >>>> the other 3 support towers that affect towers in increasing dmg output, and also that getting all support even lvl 1 combined to 2 pure/periodic, and at least 4 3xelem dmg towers is beating all other builds by far. is really boring now that i've discovered the support build. if i play other builds they are too weak, and if someone else goes support i lose, there is no challenge in finding the better/best build when is a clear winner good all around.

will be nice in a patch to fix the life/money towers witch are so bad, and fix this getting all support and win all.

[Karawasa]

Good points brought up. Your post might get me to do an update.

[WindStrike]

Ah, someone else found the reason that I myself stopped playing (that, and I simply played too much, somewhere in the over 1000 hours range), though unfortunately never really saw a way to fix it either. For the purposes of random mode, there was a major buff to support towers, and this fixed the issue in random mode where some builds literally couldn't even get to the fruit wave (namely on very hard difficulty) and overall made it a lot more balanced. In theory, it also fixed the standard all pick game, except one build, and that's the all support + pures build, which essentially breaks the game and turns all other builds completely inferior.

The theory to fix it would to nerf the periodic tower, but how? If its damage drops too low, then it becomes completely worthless outside of the all support build. So what I've determined is that its splash damage in combination with its long range is too strong. Think Oblivion tower, except no reload and completely superior. So I have two suggestions to fix this sucker:

• Lower its range. So long as you can place them in that bottom-left corner (which is fine for other towers), the periodic tower is overpowered especially with the all support build.
• You know that idea where we were going to change it into a rainbow tower that fires 6 different attacks of each element? Essentially, instead of a splash attack, the periodic tower fires a 6-split attack (each is single target), each of a different element. It would have the hail tower limitation in that it can only hit one target per attack, so if there's only 3 targets, only three of the attacks would fire at a time.

Honestly, I have not tried the all support tower build with the periodic towers in say, the middle, for example, and then see if that nerfs it a ton or not, so the range nerf idea may or may not affect this horribly.

[Twilice]

Well actually, I've never though about it before, but what about a big overhaul in the damage amplifications.

Elemental damage deals a minor bonus damage to ordinary elements. But a huge decrease (less than 50%) to the element it's weak against.

It wouldn't solve the periodic tower being to powerful issue, but it would rather be a workaround to make several tier 3 more appealing. While also make the use of -more different types of damage towers- over support towers.

Lets theorycraft with some made up numbers,

The powers for a single element, lets say

fire

Fire: 110%

Water: 30%

Light: 110%

Darkness: 110%

Earth: 110%

Nature: 200%

Getting different types of elements, lets say you have 3 main elements with equal strength in your tower worth.

Fire / Earth / Darkness

Fire: 110%

Water: 113%

Light: 113%

Darkness: 110%

Earth: 110%

Nature: 113%

I know that currently it's already a similar case, where using 2 elements would benefit it in this way:

Fire / Earth / Darkness

Fire: 100%

Water: 116%

Light: 116%

Darkness: 100%

Earth: 100%

Nature: 116%

Maybe I'm thinking in a wrong direction to solve the problem? Or maybe it's a good direction to solve the problem, but new ones arrive. Single element being very very weak vs an element.

[Karawasa]

What I'm going to do is make Periodic in line with other Pures. Right now it has a better DPS ratio than anything else. The fact that it does Composite damage should be more than enough to justify it.

I'm also going to nerf support DPS.

[WindStrike]

Dropping it back down to 6000 (where it was before all the single-elements got buffed) or somewhere inbetween like 7000?

I'm personally fine with a support dps nerf, but not all the way down to the level it was before it was all buffed a ton.

[Karawasa]

Dropping it back down to 6000 (where it was before all the single-elements got buffed) or somewhere inbetween like 7000?

7000.

I'm personally fine with a support dps nerf, but not all the way down to the level it was before it was all buffed a ton.

Agreed.

[ender]

what do you mean by lowering support dps? lowering the buff? or only tower dmg, or both?

if is only dmg of tower and not buffs it's worthless i think, the dmg amp/slow /tower buff is what breaks the game not support tower dps.

one ideea will be to make support based on a 3th resource, that is limited as gas is(not saying 6 support towers only i say it should be limited.) or make the combos better so getting all support will not be that easy.

[WindStrike]

Just the support towers' damage. Trust me, at one point, their damage outputs were literally useless, and some builds (and build orders) were impossible (cough, random mode). As it is now, combined with the currently overpowered periodic tower, yeah they're a little strong, but they can't be made too weak either.

The only way it'd be fine for them to go back to their original damage values... would be if support towers can be buffed by forge, well, and trickery towers. I actually don't know the exact reason that they can't, personally I think it'd be cool if they could (some interesting build orders would open up), but here's two of the reasons that I'm guessing:

• When you have all your towers out, it's a lot better for your non-support towers to be buffed than your support towers. Tis why you can't buff ray/grenade towers, they got in the way, lol.
• YO DAWG, WE HEARD YOU LIKE TRICKERY TOWERS, SO WE CLONED YOUR TRICKERY TOWERS SO YOU CAN CLONE TRICKERY TOWERS WHILE YOU CLONE TRICKERY TOWERS. Of course, the way to do this is to just prevent clones from being able to use clones.

The way to fix that issue is to have a toggle on/off shield on support towers that's defaulted to on. If the shield is up, support towers can't be buffed. If the shield is down, support towers can be buffed.