Fast levels

[Guest Sancdar]

Do fast creeps have a higher minimum movespeed than regular creeps, or just a higher normal speed? I think they should be like...immune to slows or something. Hell, maybe just make a level that's immune to all debuffs - the towers would still attack it, it just wouldn't lose armor, get damaged over time, or be slowed.

[Guest mrchak]

Maybe that's a new creep ability "Immune"

No slowing

No poisoning

No armor reduce

No Stunning

No hexing

That would certainly make for some TOUGH levels... but challenges are GOOD.

[Karawasa]

I think it is hot.

[Cisz]

Hm. If they have the usual ammount of hit points, you can choose to either leak on those waves or try to go for brute force builds.

A brute force build is a build that kills all creeps without support. If such a build is valid, there is no need for support towers on the map. Any build can win. If it is not valid, you will have to leak on immune waves.

Not so hot imo.

Maybe people could overbuild for immune waves with money they saved with using support towers on non-immune waves.. But that would have to be an overbuild of epic proportions, like "300% of the usual damage my build does", which is a pretty realistic evaluation of the effect of loosing your support towers. In lfwd this loss is even higher.

So I think this is impossible to implement balance wise, unless the imune creeps have less hp, so that this overbuild would't have to be that extreme.

Remember, many slowing concepts require to build on a long pass placement and brute force won't work if not placed on two pass. So we are talking of yet another loss of firepower of like maybe 20-30% on top of the loss of the support.

I wish luck to the dev team for trying to get that to work.

Wait, I'm on the dev team.. Evasive action, evasive action, hold developement of immunes now..

[Karawasa]

The voice of reason sings again.

[Cisz]

"Do the macarena!"

I'm starting to feel so conservative right now. Seems I'm oldschool.

[Guest Sancdar]

Hey, I'm opening to anything that resists slows. I'd say you're right about full immunes, but most of the time I don't see creeps take both passes unless I'm building conservatively or it's an element I don't have a counter to. I think an immune build with only a small decrease in hitpoints is indeed viable. And hey, we've all seen builds without any slows do fine. Even pure damage builds have won easily. I'm pretty sure there was some challenge that allowed no multi-element towers.

[Cisz]

Ok, provide an example replay.

[Karawasa]

Perhaps resistant would be alright, but Cisz is right when he says that immune is not viable. Regardless, I think the game is fine with the four categories now, unless we want to brainstorm some new ones.

[Guest mrchak]

So maybe "thick skin" could be a buff, giving an extra bit of armor (like 5 or 10).

I'm in agreement with the point that it 4 is a good number.

By the way, what do you think about levels 1-10 being Undead or Mech - it is pointless that early I suppose; but then again it doesn't hurt either, and gives you a taste of whats to come...

[Cisz]

Those first level elements and types are more like a design feature.

And I like it.

[Guest Sancdar]

Hey, I'm opening to anything that resists slows. I'd say you're right about full immunes, but most of the time I don't see creeps take both passes unless I'm building conservatively or it's an element I don't have a counter to. I think an immune build with only a small decrease in hitpoints is indeed viable. And hey, we've all seen builds without any slows do fine. Even pure damage builds have won easily. I'm pretty sure there was some challenge that allowed no multi-element towers.

Ok, provide an example replay.

http://rapidshare.com/files/37207199/here_...o_cisz.w3g.html

Not perfect, but serviceable. Based on my general available cash I think it's pretty likely that fire/earth is viable in most multiplayer games.

[Cisz]

Thanks for that.

Now I will try to prove my point.

First we take a look at your replay:

Wave 36, dark, mechanical, no leak

18 x 225 in amplified towers

6 x 1.013 in in focused towers

------------------------------------------

10.128 gold in towers (slight overbuild)

Wave 44, dark, undead, no leak

28 x 1.013 in focused towers

------------------------------------------

28.364 gold in towers (perfect fit, almost leaked)

Wave 45, fire, 1 leak

30 x 1.013 in focused towers

------------------------------------------

30.390 gold in towers (slightly to little)

Wave 50, earth, undead, no leak

20 x 1.013 in focused towers

10 x 4.556 in refined towers

------------------------------------------

65.820 gold in towers (very slight overbuild)

I've chosen waves that are not healing or fast and that you have no strong or weak towers against. (Non elemental takes 90% of non composite, so you are actually a bit weak vs non.) And I took waves that you didn't totally overbuild (like wave 52).

Let's compare this to the gold available to you through bounty:

Wave 36: 6.744 in bounty, 10.128 used; 3.384 difference

Wave 44: 15.120 in bounty, 28.364 used; 13.244 difference

Wave 50: 27.336 in bounty, 65.820 used; 38.484 difference

The difference is the extra gold you needed to kill the wave. You have provided this gold by nicely selling/rebuilding temp towers and by 5 interest picks. (And to a slighter extend by letting the waves last longer.)

The gold used can be asumed to be the gold required to kill an immune wave, since you used no support and placed them nearly perfectly. (I tend to dissagree with the towers at 2; numpad notation.)

So the question is: Can a player with two aoe slows and no armour reduction produce enough money without interest picks, to be able to kill an imune wave? (We can add one or two single target slows to that.) (Two aoe slows as this will be what you get for an 4 element build if my build structure gets used.)

So - a new task - can you provide a second replay with two aoe slows, no armour reduction, no well or gold towers, 1 or 2 single target slows, that gives you a total networth like this:

Wave 36: 10.128

Wave 44: 28.364

Wave 50: 65.820

To prove your point you need to provide two replays, one without support and a very low amount of used towers, and one with only two supports and a very high networth. If both values overlap, your suggestion might be possible. This will change with slows getting nerfed ofc...

>> Replay: My Attempt <<

I barely manage to get the required networth (remember to take into account the different calculation of net worth on pick games - so my real networth is higher than the one displayed in the game), but my towers are placed totally wrong for a two pass game on immune waves. And I have to sell all extra towers after each immune wave again, to continue farming interest again, so for each immune wave i loose 25% of my cash. In other words, and imo, immunes have to be decidingly weaker to be ballanced.

What do you think?

[Guest Sancdar]

The gold used can be asumed to be the gold required to kill an immune wave, since you used no support and placed them nearly perfectly. (I tend to dissagree with the towers at 2; numpad notation.)

Yeah, 2 is a mistake. I was just trying to build like I did for the original challenge where I did this, way back when.

So the question is: Can a player with two aoe slows and no armour reduction produce enough money without interest picks, to be able to kill an immune wave? (We can add one or two single target slows to that.) (Two aoe slows as this will be what you get for an 4 element build if my build structure gets used.)

So - a new task - can you provide a second replay with two aoe slows, no armour reduction, no well or gold towers, 1 or 2 single target slows, that gives you a total networth like this:

Wave 36: 10.128

Wave 44: 28.364

Wave 50: 65.820

To prove your point you need to provide two replays, one without support and a very low amount of used towers, and one with only two supports and a very high networth. If both values overlap, your suggestion might be possible. This will change with slows getting nerfed ofc...

I'm not convinced that that shows anything, really. Are you suggesting a complete retool just for immune waves?

My Attempt

I tried to build according to your requirements and got around the same networth values, I think. Like I said though, I don't know what this shows. This build isn't even very sane, I don't use one of my element picks and have no real reason for at least one other.

My thoughts are:

Normal waves...are normal.

Mechanical waves...are normal for the majority of builds.

Undead waves...are normal for the majority of builds.

Fast waves...punish builds without AoE slow, because when slowed they are effectively normal creeps. They severely punish AoE builds without slows, but those are silly anyway.

Healing waves...severely punish looong AoE builds.

Basically, fast waves are only hard if you don't have AoE slows. There is no wave that is comparatively harder if you do have AoE slows. In fact, as long as no player is killing waves incredibly fast, every wave is significantly easier with an AoE slow or two. At this point I am rallying for a creep wave that has an avatar ability to get temporary immunity from slows/holds.

However, I still believe that while an immune wave would be too strong for regular play, it would be killable. To that end I request a modified map from Karawasa, one with all slow/stun abilities removed from towers, but any extra damage from those abilities remaining (so tornado would still deal damage, etc.). I think even making EVERY wave immune, it would still be possible to have a few AoE slow towers and be able to beat the game on VH.

[Cisz]

Hm. I'm starting to understand how imune should work. Countering slows or maybe other support.

But I still don't understand what the game would be like as a result. Right now I fear that placement would become pretty boring, as you have to play on two pass every game.

And still I think that canceling most/all support equals about 300-400% hp increase, and thats to big a jump. We should rather nerf aoe slow (thats on it's way now) and, if we decide to have immunes, make them no more then maybe 50-100% stronger vs aoe-slow builds. Which is about what healing or speed does to an unadapted build now.

[Guest Sancdar]

Yeah, I definitely agree. I'm just trying to think of a reasonable way to do it...perhaps a short avatar with a smaller cooldown, so that a one-pass build could still get hits in? It would actually be slightly stronger against a two-pass build.

[Guest kokuril]

Maybe that's a new creep ability "Immune"

No slowing

No poisoning

No armor reduce

No Stunning

No hexing

That would certainly make for some TOUGH levels... but challenges are GOOD.

Oh my god

Maybe have new tower that can increase damage of the other tower too.

But this new tower don't cast when other creep pass.