Massive list of suggestions

[WindStrike]

Incoming list of game-changing/improving suggestions! This first post contains a bunch of changes I’d personally like to see in SC2’s EleTD, and it does include balance changes. I know the game has kind of fallen out, but I really think it can be fixed and improved, along with expanded options for multiplayer. The second post comments on the various modes, and the third post contains a dramatic but primarily positive change to the game.

1. Players choose creep waves

· This suggestion is intended as a standard feature, not a mode. Each wave, players get to pick the next wave, starting on Wave 10 (this would choose for Wave 11). Every creep combination is available from the start (element type and creep ability).

· There would not be a cooldown on it, so you could theoretically pick the same wave type the entire game.

· The picks are done in rotation, so Player 1 starts, then Player 2, then Player 3, then Player 4, and so on until it loops back around to Player 1.

· Players have until the start of the wave timer to choose a wave. If the player does not choose a wave in time, the next wave defaults to the standard wave.

· This is disabled for 1 to 3 players.

· This would expand the multiplayer aspect of the normal game. Quite frankly, if anyone doesn’t like how multiplayer has actual interactivity, they can just play single player. Besides, the “standard” game mode is called Competitive.

2. Global Creep Buffs

· Like the above suggestion, this is intended as a standard feature. It is disabled for single player for obvious reasons.

· A set of buffs that you can apply at any time, increasing the strength of all creeps for everyone temporarily for the next 30 seconds. The available buffs are:

· 15% Current/Max HP Increase

· 15% Speed Increase

· Creeps regenerate 1% HP per second.

· Creeps gain 15% resistance to debuffs. This also lowers the durations of the debuffs by 15%.

· You can only apply one Creep Buff at a time. The cost of each buff will scale with every wave, but when the duration ends, you’ll get 75% of the cost back.

· When you are applying a Creep Buff, you get no interest.

· During the fruit wave, the cost will continue to scale as the fruit scale. Additionally, you don’t get any of the cost back.

· This is something else that could increase multiplayer options and strategies. The global buffs may need to scale a little bit depending on the number of players (probably down to 10% at 8 players), but I think it would really provide more interactivity and fun for multiplayer games.

3. Starting Gold

· During the game start, it’s rather silly that, in order to get the most out of your interest, you need to wait until right when the first wave starts to build your towers. This suggestion increases starting gold at the higher difficulties while fixing that issue.

· Before the first wave starts, interest should be disabled.

§ Very Easy – 70 gold

§ Easy – 70 gold

§ Normal – 70 gold

§ Hard – 70 gold

· Extreme – 75 gold

§ Very Hard – 75 gold

· Extreme – 80 gold

§ Insane – 90 gold

· Extreme – 100 gold

4. Wave timers

· The intention here is to give longer wave timers on higher difficulties, but also drop scaling timers. It should also reduce the viability of front-entrance camping.

· Very Easy – 10 seconds

· Easy – 8 seconds

· Normal – 6 seconds

· Hard – 5 seconds

· Very Hard – 5 seconds

· Insane – 5 seconds

5. Ability scaling

· This would scale how powerful creep abilities are. Higher difficulties will increase the power of abilities.

· Very Easy – Abilities decreased by 20%

· Easy – Abilities decreased by 10%

· Normal – Default

· Hard – Abilities increased by 7.5%

· Very Hard – Abilities increased by 15%

· Insane – Abilities increased by 20%

6. Speed creeps

· Speed creeps are often the most difficult creeps by a long-shot in the early game, but in the late game, due to slowing, they might as well be standard creeps. This change nerfs them early but buffs them against slowing builds later.

· When the speed buff activates, the speed increase is dropped from +200% to +100%.

· Additionally, the creep becomes immune to all forms of slowing for this period of time.

7. Fruit Wave

· While it should stay in waves, it really needs to have randomized creep abilities scattered across the fruits. I’m not saying each wave is a different ability, but each fruit individually has a different ability.

· This would really fix how, in the end-game, splash wins by default. Healing creeps and mechanical creeps would really screw up all-splash defenses.

8. Attack Ground

· Please make it so when you select a group of towers and have them attack ground on a single spot, they all do it and not just the primary target.

9. 6-element Block

· Having all 6 elements can be good. However, in random mode, it can also be rather destructive, not to mention a little boring and quite annoying when you play random mode but get it every single time.

· If you’re in random mode, you have a question mark in the top-left corner of your area. This suggestion makes it so the question mark has the following option:

· When you acquire a fifth element, it disables the sixth element, preventing you from getting it.

· This must be chosen prior to the first element pick (aka, before the end of Wave 5).

10. Speed Mode

· Suggested here by TheKingsWolf - https://forums.eletd.com/index.php?/topic/94997-1x-2x-5x-speed-mode/

· Base speed would be x1, the other speeds would be x1.25, x1.5, x1.75 and x2, and regarding how it’s picked, it would act how people picking difficulties work, ala the average.

· Not really necessary, but it’d be a nice feature, especially if you’re doing long-pass defenses in single-player and want the game to be sped up.

11. Towers

· Annnd here’s all the balance suggestions I’ve got for towers. FYI, some of these are large changes.

· Earth Tower

· DPS – 16, down from 18

· It feels completely superior to Fire and Water, so a damage decrease should fix it.

· Poison Tower – Tower Update

· Range – 12, down from 16

· Instead of resetting its splash every time it changes targets, it resets after it hasn’t attacked for 2 seconds. The rate its splash increases would need to drop.

· This tower is literally useless in the early game. It cannot do anything without severe slowing and speed bonuses to its attacks, and, in fact, limiting viable builds with this tower to Dark 3, Water 3, Nature 3, Earth 2. This would improve its use in the early game and give it more viability with other builds, as well as maintaining its usefulness with the above mentioned build.

· Quark Tower – Tower Rewrite

· DPS – 10

· Range – 8

· AoE – Everything within its range

· Quark Tower starts out with low damage. However, the longer it deals damage, the more damage it does to everything around it. Additionally, its range can be changed, up to 10, 12 and 16; however, the rate that it grows is lessened, and changing its range resets its damage down to base value.

· This change would fix Quark Tower in the early game in that it’s straight up overpowered beyond belief. Its low DPS would weaken the wave and probably only destroy part of it, but in the late game, slowing would help it substantially, so it’d be far more useful then.

· Additionally, in terms of what it hits, given the way the orbs are, can be rather impractical, especially at the 16 range. This would fix its issues at the upper range and give it more spots it can be placed.

· Mildew Tower – Tower Update

· DPS – 15

· The higher the HP is, the more damage this will do. Additional damage dealt is equal to (Current HP/Maximum HP) * 15.

· This would make it weaker in the early game, which it needs, because it’s way too easy to camp the front door with this by itself. In the late-game, it was pretty useless, so this would increase its effectiveness.

· Vapor Tower

· DPS – 8, down from 10

· Decreases the base DPS, lowering its early game power, which is also very strong.

· Ice Tower

· DPS – 40, down from 50

· Range – 10, down from 12

· This tower is WAY too strong early game. This also makes it so that the explosion can hit a lot better.

· Flamethrower Tower

· DPS – 150, down from 227

· Napalm’s damage is increased to 100.

· Currently, Napalm’s effects aren’t very well felt. This shifts the overall DPS of Flamethrower around so that half of it is in the initial attack and the other half of it is in the Napalm. While its DPS is nerfed slightly, because Napalm’s AoE is a flat 6, this would be an overall buff, and the tower would gain a lot more synergy and thus usefulness in the late-game.

· Laser Tower

· DPS – 1400, up from 1100

· Laser Tower is just a pretty weak tower overall. This should help it out.

· Runic Tower

· Ability’s AoE dropped down to 2.25.

· This tower is stupidly strong in all stages of the game and stupidly OP with slowing. This is a flat nerf to fix it.

· Obliteration Tower

· DPS – 500

· This is simply a text change and not an actual damage change.

· Hail Tower – Tower Update

· DPS – 900

· The tower is always firing 3 shots at a time.

· For 3 seconds, the tower can direct its fire at a single target. Defaulted to off for auto-cast.

· I honestly found it odd that it’s firing at its best for 6 seconds and then virtually useless for the next 3 seconds, so it might as well be firing optimally at all times. This update gives it an overall damage buff as well as giving it a partial defense against single-targets. This is especially more useful for double-pass and triple-pass positions, as it’s able to make more use of it for picking off single targets.

· Flooding Tower

· DPS – 1000, up from 967

· Range – 12, up from 10

· It’s a useful tower, but it could be a little bit stronger overall.

· Haste Tower

· DPS – 340-2004

· Large damage buff. This tower, like Laser, also really needs it.

· Ephemeral Tower

· Damage – 600, up from 500

· DPS – 1935-388

· Text change for DPS to change it from maximum to minimum.

· Similar buff to Haste and Laser, though not as much.

· Celerity Tower

· DPS – 375-1125, up from 300-900

· Another single-target tower buff.

· Torrent Tower

· First two charge levels dropped (80 and 175).

· Caps at 80 attacks, down from 100.

· The first two levels were very useless anyways. This gives the lower levels more usefulness while quickening the pace to max level, giving it an overall buff at all stages of the game.

Hooray for really long lists! But really, I do think many of these if not all of them are necessary. I know you (Karawasa) are aiming to shift the game over to another platform, where it’ll exist as a standalone game, but… there is a lot of merit in continuing development for the current version game. It just needs a bit of a different direction, and it’ll probably gain in popularity, and it could even re-acquire a competitive player base. All of this could work towards the next iteration of the game, as you’d have a lot more support from the get-go.

[WindStrike]

Below is a set of overall comments on the various modes. It includes my personal opinions, what the general response is, and ways it could potentially improve.

1. Overall

· Element TD can get away with dropping all of its various modes from the initial menu (the second menu stays as is) and simply providing more options in multiplayer. Why?

§ Most players only pick the standard mode anyways.

§ Most players that play multiplayer would probably appreciate more multiplayer options in the base game.

· As it currently is, multiplayer interactivity is very limited.

§ This would attract more players, especially those of the competitive nature, into the game.

§ This would not affect the single-player game.

· Another issue is the platform. In SC2, while there’s various settings players can pick, in terms of the top games, most players are going to ignore everything except the standard mode. I blame the “meta”, but that’s how it is.

· If Element TD was a stand-alone game, it could have as many modes as it wants, and people would play all of them. While the standard mode would be the most popular, all the other modes wouldn’t literally get ignored.

· But, that asides, I’m going to drop my general comments and opinions for all the modes anyways…

2. Race Mode

· While this a mode on the second menu, I feel the need to point something out…

· There is no point in this mode existing. With absolutely no multiplayer interaction, all of the players are going to be separate anyways… it would make more sense to just upload replays for the fastest time.

3. Mazing Mode

· The game is not designed for Mazing. Or rather, the towers aren’t. Every tower in the game would be need to be rebalanced for Mazing. Otherwise, countermeasures like regeneration HP and speed increases have to be made to counteract the OP nature of splash damage for this mode, not to mention extremely long mazes.

· The mode is still fun, but in order for it to be better, it really needs to be completely rebalanced from the ground up.

· A lot of what makes Element TD special is that tower placement actually matters, and to such a degree that it’s equally a defining factor of the game alongside its element system. If I were to rebalance the game for Mazing, I’d make sure that key placement is still an equally important factor.

· Currently, it is not. It’s still got some impact – place splash towers at the rebound points, make sure mildew and ice are shooting at straight lines, but… overall, you can generally place your towers anywhere in your maze.

4. Hero Mode

· This really needs to be a lot more in depth. Elements you choose should have an actual impact on your hero. Right now, every player has an identical hero that they can upgrade down any path, and that hero can synergize with pretty well with builds, but overall, heroes are too generic.

· The damage, speed, and mana upgrades should be kept. All of the abilities, however, should be redone entirely, and what you can get should be directly linked to your elements.

· You should be able to change the element of your attack at will to any element you have.

5. Team Mode

· This mode rules. More people should play it. In fact, I think with more multiplayer options in the base game, it could happen.

6. Wars Mode

· It’s fun… to an extent. It’s not really that competitive, options for attack and defense are limited, it’s got flaws all over the place…

· To be honest, this mode should just be dropped, and instead, concentrate some of the intended ideas with this mode into the standard game. It can be fast-paced certainly, but when your elements are based on a timer, the opportunity of “when” to attack or counterattack is completely gone, and for any type of wars mode, that opportunity MUST exist, or else there is too much predictability.

· A wars mode could be possible, but… again, like Mazing except on a larger scale, it would need to be designed from the ground up.

[WindStrike]

Annnd here’s the big change!

1. How to get rid of buy/sell interest abuse

· So because ray and grenade towers sell for 100%, there’s a rather cheap trick you can do with them if you’re fast enough…

· Every time the interest marker is about to hit 0, sell all of them, and then rebuild the towers. You lose a bit of overall DPS, but over time, you stock up money…… lots of it. In fact, too much. To the point where later difficulties, despite that they’re harder, don’t feel hard at all because of this. So how do we fix this?

· Drop ray and grenade towers from the game. Completely. What does this do to the game?

· Starts the game at Wave 11, turning it into the new Wave 1.

· Starting minerals at 450. Not enough to buy a dual tower, but enough to buy two starting element towers.

· Start with two element picks.

· It IS called Element Tower Defense. It would make more sense to start the game directly with elements than with non-elements.

· You would be able to pick a Level 2 element right off the bat. You just wouldn’t be able to get a Focused tower immediately due to not starting with enough minerals.

· Building temporary grenade/ray towers to help the defense out wouldn’t work, cause they don’t exist.

· Players would learn much quicker that attempting to build instant countermeasures to waves instead of trying to save up for stronger towers would lead to doom.

· This would fix the early game difficulty on higher difficulties. Once you know how to use ray/grenade towers, the early game generally becomes a joke.

· Overall time it takes to complete the game (reach the fruit wave) is reduced.

· Seeing as how the average time is 40-50 minutes currently, this would be a huge help.

· Wave order would need to be altered/adjusted.

· In conjunction with the first suggestion in the first post, the ability to choose the next wave would start on Wave 5.

· Starting time increased to 60 seconds.

· The building for selecting your elements should be automatically selected, and your builder should not spawn until you’ve picked your first two elements, at which point it will change your selection to your builder automatically.

· Interest during this time ought to just be disabled.

· So yes, it is a huge impact to the game. A lot of it is positive, but the on the pure basis it would dramatically change the game, it’s a risky move.

· This could add a lot of attention to the site from the sudden change, be it positive or negative.

· This suggestion would not block buy/sell abuse on random mode. The next suggestion would.

2. The alternative way to get rid of it

· Keep in mind this suggestion doesn’t get rid of temporary towers, which is what makes the higher difficulties a little too easy in the early game. However, it also doesn’t cause a lot of changes like the above suggestion.

· When you sell towers, you gain your minerals back over a period of time, instead of instantly. This time would probably be a 5 second time span.

· This blocks the buy/sell abuse on random mode.

What could be done is having BOTH of these suggestions implemented. Thus all of the benefits are included.

[holepercent]

that's a pretty long list to go over. Some balance changes will be needed.

heard that there are plans to remove most of the modes (maze, hero, wars, team?) for a new mode still in design phase.

the last post is definitely risky. It will change the way games go. We've all seen players who have no idea of the elemental summoning center and just lose. Shorter game length will allow players to experiment more. For skilled players, the early game is too easy. Most do get by with semi-randomly building ray and grenade towers. In normal mode, this hardly matters anyway. short mode was introduced but not many outside of in-house games makes use of the option. One possibility is to make short mode the default and add a 'extended' mode into the menu.

The only downside of totally removing grenade and ray towers is there is little option left to catch creeps that get away with low health in the early game. Right now, the more usual play for skilled players is to save up for 2 dual element towers at 15/6 or a triple at 18 or even later. Back in the days of the forum draft series (a competitive replay-based tournament), players were known to stay with interest, ray and grenade towers up to wave 30 even! Starting with 2 element towers will change the way builds are set up. Early game builds will have to be much tighter to avoid leaks.

[WindStrike]

Well that's the thing - removing ray and grenade towers will draw new players towards the element summoning center naturally instead of outright ignoring it. As for using the ray/grenade towers to catch leaks, that makes tower placement and timing even more crucial. Or do you want to spend some money (and potentially sacrifice) on catching that leak? Or just let it through. Honestly, I see this as an upside. Makes players a little more paranoid, risk/reward is more prominent.

Any ideas what that new mode is? I haven't been around the last few months due to spambots, no community, and just overall lack of updates/attention.

[holepercent]

Just pointing it out. It may happen that players lose too fast and quit early.

[WindStrike]

I know a new UI was talked about to help fix that, but... that never happened. Pretty sure that, by dropping ray/grenade towers, players would get farther than they would, since it throws them straight into trying combination towers out.

There should DEFINITELY be a tooltip update for all support towers. It should note that it is a support tower, which would imply for people that it's not a good first pick for a combination tower.

FYI, Short mode would start at wave 10 (current wave 20), and Extra short mode would stay where it's at, wave 20 (current wave 30).

[Karawasa]

Nice list of changes!

[WindStrike]

I'm curious to know something... with the introduction of free arcade, do you intend to bring in Heart of the Swarm assets, be it for updating or adding to the game?

[WindStrike]

Alternate suggestions for Laser and Runic. Personally, going with these rather than the two suggested in the base post.

• Laser
  
  • So this tower is generic. Really generic. Sure, it's got different modes - set to weaken, set to finish, or set to random. To be honest, as flashy as the tower is, it's kind of a bland tower.
    
  • Range increase from whatever it is to global. This'd pretty much make it the ultimate chase tower, and it'd be unique in that it can go anywhere and be anywhere.
    
  • Things to consider nerfing as a result...
    
    • Obviously, DPS
      
    • The speed at which the fighters move. Currently, they're a decent pace, but they may need to be a bit slower.
      
    • The speed at which fighters launcher. This is pretty slow at the moment, so I don't think this'd need to be worse. In fact, if it was reduced, it might as well just be a Haste tower with really long range.
      
    
    
  
  
• Runic
  
  • 50% damage buff
    
  • Reduce its AoE to 1.5/3
    
  • Reduce its effect's damage to 25%. This way, it scales exponentially on a higher level with more slowing, but seriously nerfs its early so that it's not super good the entire game.
    
    • Honestly, because this tower is an exponential gain (and can be at a drastic amount), I really don't know if this'd make the tower better or worse in the late-game. That is, it's currently the best tower at the end of the game, no questions asked. Even if the fruit gain abilities, it'd still be god-tier. The balancing on this tower overall will need to be tested and adjusted.
      
    
    
  
  
• Forge/Well/Trickery
  
  • Allow these towers to buff other support towers. In return, nerf the DPS of all support towers by about 10-15%.
    
  • There should be a button that's set to "On" by default on all support towers, saying whether they'll buff support towers or not.
    
  • The reason for part of this is, in addition to the tooltip update that says which towers are support, it'd make it so new players aren't confused when they're trying to figure out why they can't buff support towers. Additionally, it'd open up different builds that haven't been really possible.
    
  
  

[WindStrike]

This is just a streamlined version of the large suggestions list, prioritizing the ones that, after testing and theory crafting through various means, are the most important.

1. New Wave Order, Earlier Start and Faster Game

• Attached to this post is a new wave order. What it does...
  
  • The first wave now starts where the old Wave 14 started, with about the same HP (45).
    
  • Instead of a set of composite rounds, it starts with a single composite round, and then it goes into a rotation between all of the elements and composite.
    
  • Creep Types start at Wave 8, just like the current game. However, there is practically no breaks in creep types. They will continue to rotate between Speed, Image, Healing, Undead, Mechanical, and Regeneration.
    
  • Waves go up to 50, after which the Fruit Round starts.
    
  
  
• The start of the game has been altered.
  
  • You start with 2 Element Picks from the get go. There is a 45-second grace period where you pick your starting elements, followed by the "Ready" button. If you have not picked your elements by the end of the grace period, your starting elements are randomized.
    
    • You cannot get a Level 2 element from the start. Level 2 and 3 elements unlock at the next element pick (after Wave 5).
      
    • When the grace period ends, you have 30 seconds before the first wave starts.
      
    
    
  • For minerals, you start with 750 minerals. This should allow you to build 4 single-element towers, or a dual-element and one single-element tower.
    
    • Bounty progression remains the same.
      
    
    
  
  
• And as a way to remove various forms of abuse...
  
  • Grenade and Ray towers are removed from the game.
    
  • Selling a tower now takes 5 seconds to deconstruct it, or cancel the sell.
    
  
  

2. Starting Gold

• Before the first wave starts, interest should be disabled.
  
  • Very Easy - 750 minerals
    
  • Easy - 750 minerals
    
  • Normal - 750 minerals
    
  • Hard - 750 minerals
    
    • Extreme - 800 minerals
      
    
    
  • Very Hard - 800 minerals
    
    • Extreme - 850 minerals
      
    
    
  • Insane - 850 minerals
    
    • Extreme - 900 minerals
      
    
    
  
  

3. Wave timers

• The intention here is to give longer wave timers on higher difficulties, but also drop scaling timers. It should also reduce the viability of front-entrance camping.
  
  • Very Easy – 10 seconds
    
  • Easy – 8 seconds
    
  • Normal – 6 seconds
    
  • Hard – 5 seconds
    
  • Very Hard – 5 seconds
    
  • Insane – 5 seconds
    
  
  

4. Ability scaling

• This would scale how powerful creep abilities are. Higher difficulties will increase the power of abilities.
  
  • Very Easy – Abilities decreased by 20%
    
  • Easy – Abilities decreased by 10%
    
  • Normal – Default
    
  • Hard – Abilities increased by 7.5%
    
  • Very Hard – Abilities increased by 15%
    
  • Insane – Abilities increased by 20%
    
  
  

5. Speed creeps

• Speed creeps are often the most difficult creeps by a long-shot in the early game, but in the late game, due to slowing, they might as well be standard creeps. This change nerfs them early but buffs them against slowing builds later.
  
  • When the speed buff activates, the speed increase is dropped from +200% to +100%.
    
  • Additionally, the creep becomes immune to all forms of slowing for this period of time.
    
  
  

6. Regeneration creeps

• This is a new creep type designed to counter multi-pass and long-pass builds, not to mention the triple-pass location at the top of the map.
  
  • Every second, creep regenerates 1% of its Maximum HP (maybe 1.5%, may need tinkering).
    
  
  

7. Fruit Wave

• While it should stay in waves, it really needs to have randomized creep abilities scattered across the fruits. I’m not saying each wave is a different ability, but each fruit individually has a different ability.
  
  • This would really fix how, in the end-game, splash wins by default. Healing creeps and mechanical creeps would really screw up all-splash defenses.
    
  
  

8. Attack Ground

• Please make it so when you select a group of towers and have them attack ground on a single spot, they all do it and not just the primary target.
  

9. Towers

• Annnd here’s all the balance suggestions I’ve got for towers. FYI, some of these are large changes.
  
  • Earth Tower
    
    • DPS – 16, down from 18
      
    • It feels completely superior to Fire and Water, so a damage decrease should fix it.
      
    
    
  • Forge/Well/Trickery
    
    • Allow these towers to buff other support towers. In return, nerf the DPS of all support towers by about 15-20%.
      
    • There should be a button that's set to "On" by default on all support towers, saying whether they'll buff support towers or not.
      
    • The reason for part of this is, in addition to the tooltip update that says which towers are support, it'd make it so new players aren't confused when they're trying to figure out why they can't buff support towers. Additionally, it'd open up different builds that haven't been really possible.
      
    
    
  • Poison Tower – Tower Update
    
    • Range – 12, down from 16
      
    • Instead of resetting its splash every time it changes targets, it resets after it hasn’t attacked for 2 seconds. The rate its splash increases would need to drop.
      
    • This tower is literally useless in the early game. It cannot do anything without severe slowing and speed bonuses to its attacks, and, in fact, limiting viable builds with this tower to Dark 3, Water 3, Nature 3, Earth 2. This would improve its use in the early game and give it more viability with other builds, as well as maintaining its usefulness with the above mentioned build.
      
    
    
  • Quark Tower – Tower Rewrite
    
    • DPS – 10
      
    • Range – 8
      
    • AoE – Everything within its range
      
    • Quark Tower starts out with low damage. However, the longer it deals damage, the more damage it does to everything around it. Additionally, its range can be changed, up to 10, 12 and 16; however, the rate that it grows is lessened, and changing its range resets its damage down to base value.
      
    • This change would fix Quark Tower in the early game in that it’s straight up overpowered beyond belief. Its low DPS would weaken the wave and probably only destroy part of it, but in the late game, slowing would help it substantially, so it’d be far more useful then.
      
    • Additionally, in terms of what it hits, given the way the orbs are, can be rather impractical, especially at the 16 range. This would fix its issues at the upper range and give it more spots it can be placed.
      
    
    
  • Ice Tower
    
    • ​DPS – 40, down from 50
      
    • Range – 10, down from 12
      
    • This tower is WAY too strong early game. This also makes it so that the explosion can hit a lot better.
      
    
    
  • Flamethrower Tower
    
    • DPS – 150, down from 222
      
    • Napalm’s damage is increased to 100.
      
    • Currently, Napalm’s effects aren’t very well felt. This shifts the overall DPS of Flamethrower around so that half of it is in the initial attack and the other half of it is in the Napalm. While its DPS is nerfed slightly, because Napalm’s AoE is a flat 6, this would be an overall buff, and the tower would gain a lot more synergy and thus usefulness in the late-game.
      
    
    
  • Laser Tower
    
    • ​DPS – 1400, up from 1100
      
    • Laser Tower is just a pretty weak tower overall. This should help it out.
      
    
    
  • Runic Tower
    
    • ​Ability’s AoE dropped down to 2.25.
      
    • This tower is stupidly strong in all stages of the game and stupidly OP with slowing. This is a flat nerf to fix it.
      
    
    
  • Obliteration Tower
    
    • DPS – 500
      
    • This is simply a text change and not an actual damage change.
      
    
    
  • Hail Tower – Tower Update
    
    • DPS – 900
      
    • The tower is always firing 3 shots at a time.
      
    • For 3 seconds, the tower can direct its fire at a single target. Defaulted to off for auto-cast.
      
    • I honestly found it odd that it’s firing at its best for 6 seconds and then virtually useless for the next 3 seconds, so it might as well be firing optimally at all times. This update gives it an overall damage buff as well as giving it a partial defense against single-targets. This is especially more useful for double-pass and triple-pass positions, as it’s able to make more use of it for picking off single targets.
      
    
    
  • Flooding Tower
    
    • ​DPS – 1000, up from 967
      
    • Range – 12, up from 10
      
    • It’s a useful tower, but it could be a little bit stronger overall.
      
    
    
  • Haste Tower
    
    • DPS – 340-2004
      
    • Large damage buff. This tower, like Laser, also really needs it.
      
    
    
  • Ephemeral Tower
    
    • ​Damage – 600, up from 500
      
    • DPS – 1935-388
      
    • Text change for DPS to change it from maximum to minimum.
      
    • Similar buff to Haste and Laser, though not as much.
      
    
    
  • Celerity Tower
    
    • ​DPS – 375-1125, up from 300-900
      
    • Another single-target tower buff.
      
    
    
  • Torrent Tower
    
    • ​First two charge levels dropped (80 and 175).
      
    • Caps at 80 attacks, down from 100.
      
    • The first two levels were very useless anyways. This gives the lower levels more usefulness while quickening the pace to max level, giving it an overall buff at all stages of the game.
      
    
    
  
  

New Wave Order.xlsx

[Karawasa]

You've got a great list here. I've decided to resume development this week.

[WindStrike]

SWEEET! You rule, sir. I'll try to be on skype more often, so prod me if ya need some testing done.

[SporkOfSteel]

I really like all of these ideas WindStrike. I especially like the no ray/grenade towers - start on level 11 idea.

As a long time player, who just recently started playing again (after over six months away) I would love to see some new updates.

I still think that the first 5 waves should be the non-elemental creeps, or at least no "special" ones (healing, undead, etc..) just so new players don't get overwhelmed trying to figure it out.

There has been a new influx of players lately, that really love the game and wish they had found it earlier.

[SporkOfSteel]

I did a base test by using no ray/grenade towers after round ten on normal difficulty. (note: I did this before seeing WindStrike's latest post on starting with 750 minerals)

• When round 11 started I had 480 min (tried to be as close to 450 as possible)
  
• My elements were EDFLNEDFLNW
  
• At the end of wave 60, I had ~109K Minerals, Game timer was ~48:00 and 27 lives left
  
• Fruit: 317 killed with 1268 fp.
  

It honestly made the game feel "new" to me. It was quite a challenge to know when to build another tower, and to ballance element types. I would kill some elements very fast, and most my leaks came on light.

I read WindStrikes last post and I agree these changes would be great. Although maybe starting with 700 instead of 750 would be better. You could still build 4 single or 1 dual and 1 singe, but have less left over. (With increasing amounts on harder difficulties.)

I really like the regeneration ability for creeps idea. With 6 abilities, normal, and composite you have 49 possible combinations. If the first two waves were composite, then the next 6 elements (all 8 rounds without abilities), you would then have 42 rounds of creeps with abilites and element/composite types rotating. (each element and composite would be paired with each ability once by round 50.

[WindStrike]

The wave order I posted is Composite, one of every element (no abilities), and then start the abilities train. The reason that blank composite wave is seemingly randomly inserted later in the wave order is to put some distance between two particular waves, otherwise it'd be Light for Wave 37 and Light for Wave 40 (too close together). There's one flaw with that wave order, and it's the lack of Dark creeps, having a long distance between 35 and 48. I dunno if Kara has found a way to fix that (without causing another issue), but otherwise, the order should work pretty well.

If you want a fun challenge, try this test out:

Start on short mode (Wave 16), but intentionally don't spend one of your elemental picks, and then spend it at wave 60. Additionally, the use of ray and grenade towers are banned.

Good to know some new players are coming in. I dunno what the progress on the update is or what's being included, or which wasn't, but here's to hopin' it goes well!

[SporkOfSteel]

That was a pretty fun challenge. Especially not having all my elements by wave 55. After wave 60 I had only 2 lives and ended up with 322 fruit kills.

No ray/grenade towers really forces you to plan ahead more. Normally I would spam elemental ray towers on the waves I know I'm going to be weak against.

[holepercent]

seconded. it's a fun challenge and really forces the player to plan for difficult waves and the late game from the start. that said, it can make the game pretty unforgiving for less experienced players. players will definitely be more aware of elemental weakness and tower upgrade paths.

[Twilice]

You've got a great list here. I've decided to resume development this week.

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/252nt8/production_has_begun_on_element_td_from_the/

Do you know anything about this? Rumours say that dota 2 custom maps will be able to generate money just like cosmetics. No official tools yet though, only scripting.

[Karawasa]

Yes, there will be a DotA 2 version! And I haven't forgotten about SC2, I've just been busy. I will get to it soon.

[Karawasa]

I haven't gotten to the SC2 updates yet. Part of me hesitates because SC2 is dying out and DotA 2 is on the horizon. The site and these forums are going to be purposed for DotA 2 once that version is ready.

[WindStrike]

I say go ahead and just leave SC2 version as it is. Sure, a lot of random people play it, but there's practically no community on the forums, no real feedback, no real debates every time I go nuts and post up giant suggestion lists *cough*. Meanwhile, I'm seeing a lot of support coming in for DOTA 2 custom maps, including a large want for "Element TD, it's back from WC3!" It's like a bunch of people didn't even know there was a SC2 version at all, even when the arcade went free to play.

[SporkOfSteel]

It saddens me to agree as well. Although I would like to see one final update for SC2, it probably isn't worth your time. I have played with a few new players that have started to play regularly and are just learning the game. (of course it gets boring playing the default settings every game.) I never even see a lot of the "regulars" anymore. (I used to play mazing with Ayr all the time back in the day.)

I guess I'll have to see if DOTA 2 will run on this ancient machine.