beta7 observations/impressions

[Guest styxus]

hey guys, long time ele td player but first time tester...after about 20ish games on beta7 i wanted to toss in a few quick observations.

-short mode: great idea!! i love it. is there any way though, to get a bit more time before the first wave spawns? not just to analyze your elements/options but the time it takes to physically build and upgrade your towers before the creeps come is barely cutting it for me.

-creep pathing: ive noticed some unneccessary 'bunching' of creeps even without any slowing towers, especially as they approach the 5 spot. can anyone else confirm/deny? its most notable (repeatable) on the waves with the nature bears and the undead fire revenants. (cant remember the numbers)

-beef golem: i noticed some size issues with these especially when receiving the 'spring forward' buff. their size will be normal, then super small, then grossly large, as the buff applies/fades. maybe an issue of them growing while under effect of the buff? also, they seem a bit overpowered to me. lvl2 max growth is 20k+60k (basically a pure), and 4-5 of these fully grown can really manhandle the waves.

-spam filter?: many of the towers in this version have damage displayed onscreen and can be quite hectic when theyre all out at the same time...with roots, laser, impetus, maledict, etc the screen can get pretty clogged.

-upgrading towers: one of the first things i noticed and didnt particularly care for was that you can no longer upgrade directly from a focused to a lvl2 dual, or from a lvl2 dual to a lvl2 triple, or from a refined to a lvl3 dual, etc. bringing this back would be great so you dont have to sell/rebuild the same tower to get the upgrade.

thanks for taking the time to read

-Styxus

[Guest 1mpulse]

they removed the upgrading from a focused to lvl2 dual etc cause of the cost imbalances.

[Twilice]

-upgrading towers: one of the first things i noticed and didnt particularly care for was that you can no longer upgrade directly from a focused to a lvl2 dual, or from a lvl2 dual to a lvl2 triple, or from a refined to a lvl3 dual, etc. bringing this back would be great so you dont have to sell/rebuild the same tower to get the upgrade.

Yeah, somehow. In random It doesn't do anything as you don't lose any gold from selling. But most of the time (not always) you lose your gold when you uppgrade to a focused tower and there is no way to change that desision.

[electronX]

Hello!

I post my opinions in this topic.

First of all: the game is developing in a very good direction! Nice to see this.

I can't say much about balancing, I usually lose this game even on normal, so I'm a loser in this aspect

General idea: I think most builds should have composite damagers. I usually receive 3 element builds in random, and it's very nice when I have a lot of good towers, most of them fire, and the round is water. Or, electricity seems to be light*, FLW fights earth.

* Darkness levels were gone fast, earth were bad. But I'm not sure.

Short mode 1 (3 instant picks): I also vote for some more starting time for short mode.

Short mode 2 (leaking starts next round): This game mode is very tricky, sometimes annoying, but in some cases good, especially if I want some challenge. For example, if I want to simulate online play while playing alone. So, if possible, I vote this for a game mode.

Short mode 3 (level 1 towes available): I had the idea some weeks ago, that all of the level 1 elemental towers ($50) should be available already at the start. They doesn't make much sense in case of the first levels (composite). Or, another idea is the complete removal of these towers. Who is using them, except newbies? Cannons/arrows prove better, they are learnable, upgradable to elementals, and when you start to ignore them (around level 15-25), level 1 elemental towers are way too weak. (Weaker than super composites.) So, what if elemental towers would start at $225?

Trickery: This is somewhat useless now. Level 1 trickery can clone a level 1 dual and a level 3 elemental, but level 1 triples cost more (3.03x). What if they would be mana based? They could copy or change, it doesn't matter, but the idea (not balanced): level 1 is 1 mana/sec, level 2 is 5, level 3 is 25. Cloning cost is the target price divided by a constant amount. (This is better then inverting, because you can learn, that a cannon costs 10 mana, and it's the same at all levels.) Mana capacity could be different for these towers, but I think level 1 should be able to clone a pure. You should just wait price / divisor / manaspeed seconds. If the tower starts up with a low amount of mana (zero), then it could be sold instantly, unlike the current (which you cannot replace if you don't need it!).

[Guest 1mpulse]

as if the trickery tower was channeling the copy it created??

i like it. could clone a cannon for a LONG time but it could only clone a pure for a few secs. maybe this should be tried?

[Guest Sancdar]

That would be a pain to do, I think.

General idea: I think most builds should have composite damagers. I usually receive 3 element builds in random, and it's very nice when I have a lot of good towers, most of them fire, and the round is water. Or, electricity seems to be light*, FLW fights earth.

* Darkness levels were gone fast, earth were bad. But I'm not sure.

I think no builds should have composite damagers, because they'd be too useful. It's kind of the point that if you have mainly towers of one element, the counter-element is very difficult. I do think that some 4-builds seem to have too many damage towers of one element, though.

Basic Elemental Towers: Or, another idea is the complete removal of these towers. Who is using them, except newbies? Cannons/arrows prove better, they are learnable, upgradable to elementals, and when you start to ignore them (around level 15-25), level 1 elemental towers are way too weak. (Weaker than super composites.) So, what if elemental towers would start at $225?

Yes please! Amplified towers might see some use. Right now, Basics basically just slow down building Duals/Triples. I sometimes use them for placeholders so I don't forget to put a tower there later, but that's it.

Trickery: This is somewhat useless now. Level 1 trickery can clone a level 1 dual and a level 3 elemental, but level 1 triples cost more (3.03x).

The tooltip is actually inaccurate, Trickery can clone triples of the same level. Given that, Trickery is probably one of the best towers around again. If you can find a good triple, that is. Trickery3 is basically a free "win the game" coupon if you can survive to it, since it can clone pures for less than half the cost and no essence. Even if you're playing fast and need 2 for a full-time clone, it's more affordable than an actual pure.

[0rb3r]

@Short mode 3: Now that you mention it, it really sounds like a good thing to axe element towers and start on amplified towers right away. It is pretty bothersome to upgrade them all the time to get duals and triples and (excepting earth maybe), they are just playable for a very short amount of waves. Good idea.

@Trickery: It's clear that we remove mana always when possible, and that trickery has to transform into the tower, not copying it. What if:

Trickery would set the duration as a ratio (Triquery value/Transformed value)*constant duration. Like:

Trickery Lvl1 cost 500, 12 secs constant, can transform into:

• Elemental Arrow/Cannon for (500/162)*12= 37 secs duration

Lvl1 Dual Element for (500/500)*12= 12 secs duration

Lvl1 Triple Element for (500/1517)*12= 3,9 secs duration

Lvl2 Dual Element for (500/2000)*12= 3 secs duration

Lvl2 Triple Element for (500/6068)*12= 0,9 secs duration

Lvl3 Dual Element for (500/8000)*12= 0,75 secs

Single Element pure (500/20502)*12= 0,3 secs

Trickery Lvl2/3 cost 2000/8000, 12 secs constant, can transform into:

• Elemental Arrow/Cannon for 148/592 secs duration

Lvl1 Dual Element for 48/192 secs duration

Lvl1 Triple Element for 15/63 secs duration

Lvl2 Dual Element for 12/48 secs duration

Lvl2 Triple Element for 3,9/15,8 secs duration

Lvl3 Dual Element for 3/12 secs

Single Element pure 1,2/4,7 secs

That should do the trick. Cd/mana could be 20 secs. In case you missclick you can use the sell button and get mana/cd back depending on how long the skill has been used (if you copy a cannon for a total of 148 secs but sell after 74 secs, still remaining 50% of the time, you get 50% of the mana back).

I would anyway prefer that the skill would be used to set which tower you want to copy as soon as trickery attacks rather then have to use manually this skill each wave. Specially if you own many trickerys. Just showing some channeling graphics of which trickery is set to which tower. That whould automatize much work of the clickwork.