01:24, 7th Jan 2012
Vengeancekael: Fair enough - approved.

Hiho,

I uploaded this new LTW - Evolution as a new map on the hive because I want to keep both versions for download.
They are very different and I think most people won't like this new concept in LTW - Evolution v2.00 but I hope that they will find it better and more strategic than the old versions over time.

Could somebody please approve this? =)

Robbepop

So the only change you've done is optimize it?

Hiho,

no, I completely changed the whole towers.
There were many many elemental tower which got all removed and replaced by strategical towers.
So there is a big difference in both gameplays.

Some modes also had to be removed because they were influenced by elemental towers.

So I want to keep a version with elemental towers and with the new gameplay for the players. =)

Robbepop



edit: thanks for approving !!

Lets taste it.

This is far too different from LTW, and pretty much made from scratch with a completely different style. You should give it your own name, too, so people don't get it confused with Line Tower Wars. Name it Robbe Tower Wars or something.

The only difference here is that the elemental towers got removed by tactically used towers which require more skill to place and use correctly.

Perhaps I will create some extensions for the towers to give players back their beloved customization.

Robbepop

I wasn't complaining, I was just saying that you made it all from scratch, so you might as well give it a new name, as the way it's played is entirely different, and I would consider it a different game. That's why I have both this, and your 1.65, in my maps folder, and I play them both.

Although, I would appreciate it if you brought back branches into the basic towers.

Best map ever!

ok, but why 1/5?

Robbepop said:

ok, but why 1/5?

Click to expand...

He must have failed, and clicked the wrong thumb... Now your map's rating will be ruined forever by some noob who just joined the forums...

perhaps a moderator can repaire it ...

(copied from my previous comment on v1.65)

For 2.06, hmm... You should definitely put the branches back together into basic towers. I liked the idea of archer splitting into guard tower and cannons later on, and blade tower splitting into blade and ogre later on; you should have kept that. I also really miss having the blade and ogre towers, they added some strategy as you had to make sure you used them in places where they could take advantage of their qualities.

While you're at it, if you do bring branches back into the game, you could make the anti-air tower another branch out of the guard tower, and add a new "rocket tower" branch from the cannon towers, rocket tower having a smaller splash radius, but being able to target air. Basically, the archer tower would have a total of four different end-game results that it could end up as.

The blade could be a branch out from the wall, which would then later split into more blades, or the mauler.

I've got a few more ideas, but I'm going to save them for the map I'm working on, and then give the ideas to you after it's released. If you implemented them before my map was released, people would probably accuse me of stealing from you, and I would rather avoid being accused of stealing my own work XD.

AnonymousPro said:

Best map ever!

Click to expand...

You have 5 from me for balance. Are there any bots?

Hiho,

thank you!
btw: you should try out the newest version v2.10 which I will release within the next seconds.

Robbepop

I know a very old version you have posted once on some german forum ^^ doesn't deserve a rating of 1/5... and since its a nice map, I 'll rate it correspondingly.

hiho and thank you very much! =)
I have already spoken with the 1/5 rating-user and he said that he will re-vote this ...

The new version is partially very different from the old versions.
Many new ideas have been brought to LTW during that time!

Robbepop

edit: btw, I am currently making an AI for this map.
Could anybody need such an AI for line tower wars - I mean a good one, not such crappy ones which already exist ... ;-)

TLI-Inferno said:

He must have failed, and clicked the wrong thumb... Now your map's rating will be ruined forever by some noob who just joined the forums...

Click to expand...

Well I already re-voted. and hi there, I guess you are some 'pro' just because you joined the forum since 2008?

ok thank you!

but what about my question?
would you like to see bots (AI) in this map? ;-)

Robbepop

Yes Ai would make this awsome. If it really is as good as you say, like they can build completely random mazes, that would be soooo cooool!!! xD

Robbepop said:

ok thank you!

but what about my question?
would you like to see bots (AI) in this map? ;-)

Robbepop

Click to expand...

Well having ai building random maze could be good, however it'll definitely raise the size of this map.
the map is good to me because it is nicely packed in size I wish it could be kept minimum.
we seldom have people playing with ai either, then it would be a waste.

Why is the game spammable, you can keep spawning runners and win.
or is nocd summon a part of a mode?
It can't be played when summoning don't take a cooldown.

this was very experimental and the creeps should have been balanced so that the no-cooldown feature shouldn't be that rough to the balance.
besides that the fast-mode was too fast before I did this and the AI would be harder to realize.

The hardest thing on making the AI is to make it extremely efficient so that the AI makes good decisions without much computation.
I have already formed some datastructures which should be working in order to make this happen. =)

Besides from that the AI wouldn't take up much map file size so it will stay a small map.
What do you mean with completely random mazes?

Let's say you make a game with you and 11 AI oponents. Then every AI will make a maze depending on what enemies you send to it. So if you send many attacking units the AI will make many walls and siege towers in order to stop that etc. ...
However, the general build-up of mazes will be the same.
(Line after line, which is btw. the most efficient build-up.)

Robbepop

initial gold 25, just started barricade mazing and summon sheeps, at first it is quite smoothly played, and the income beats the tower damage soon.
I set the 2500 initial gold command, just spam wars.

What you're saying is people who know how to defend well, can prevent the sheep spam.
However, most line tower players are beginners, some realised fast they would only spam sheeps for income, some might even be slow that they don't know where to summon and only build towers.
build tower = low income
spam spawning sheep = lots of income and most likely winning the game.

I just played a few games, initial gold 25, the income rate is too fast towers are unable to handle tier 2 mobs. I had like a whole maze of cannon tower level 4 and level 5, that cost a hell lot, and can't even kill trolls fast unit costing 4k, however my tower cost like
1k to tier 4, 10k to upgrade to tier 5 tower.
and what tier 5 tower do is they barely kill tier 2 mobs,
it cost 4k to summon a troll, which surely can run pass a small maze of 30 tier 4 towers.
and a 4k troll beats a 30k maze, isn't that very amusing.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bug command :
in load screen it says -lives x.
start game choosing mode it says -life x to set initial life to x,
actual command is -lives x
start game choosing mode it says -transferlifes or -tl
actual command is -transferlives or -tl
start game choosing mode it says -enablecmd or -ec,
actual command is -enableorders or -eo
start game choosing mode it says -noattacker or -ns
actual command -noattackers or -ns
-food x should be within 50-200
type -food 1000 and it gives 200 food limit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggestion for improvement.
*To make the game at least a little playable, players shouldn't enable the mode -ts, it just make the players keep summoning.
*Build tower should be instantly build finish.
*Magic towers should have autocast fireball ability, to turn casting fireball on/off, initial to be on.
*Make button for host to choose mode, the buttons including all the modes and a -ready button
*Random Spawn should be spawning randomly to different players instead of randoming all the mobs to go to the same player.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It isn't a tactical game just by spamming. thus, shall lower the rating to 3.
Haven't reached tier 3 mobs at all.
tier 2 20k cost mob can barely use them before winning game.(Because tier 4 towers cost 1k, and that amount cost of mob can just run through maze easily.
The game is too unbalanced.
You should consider balancing the game before making AI, or perhaps calling it Spam tower war(AI).w3x

Robbepop said:

this was very experimental and the creeps should have been balanced so that the no-cooldown feature shouldn't be that rough to the balance.

Click to expand...

Experimental? Try creating the map and play with the public.
build a quick barricade maze with 1 attacking tower at start.
spam all the income and you will enjoy the smooth game play at start.
Try to be able to play up to a time that you can summon a tier 3 mob,
and if you could, convince yourself the map is experimental.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I put in a lot of effort in replying to you because I've tested it a lot of time and what other gamers replied is,

Gamer said:

Why did the my own summoned mob come to my own lane and is not randomizing?

Click to expand...

Gamer said:

what kind of bullsh*t game this is, I haven't even started building and i died.

Click to expand...

Gamer said:

You call this a game?

Click to expand...

Hiho,

first of all thank you for your suggestions.
However, I really can't understand some of your points because it works actually very different from what you say.

Suggestion for improvement.
*To make the game at least a little playable, players shouldn't enable the mode -ts, it just make the players keep summoning.
*Build tower should be instantly build finish.
*Magic towers should have autocast fireball ability, to turn casting fireball on/off, initial to be on.

Click to expand...

- Why has the mode -ts (-terrainsnow) which just switches the terrain to a snowy one any influence on the gamers at all?
- I tried to enable instant building of towers but it seems to be not possible at that time, perhaps I can achieve it now ...
- I am against an auto-cast of the fireball ability. First of all spell towers should only be used by people who actually can handle them. They are meant for big and huge creeps to stun them to death and besides that they can help defending your maze actively by healing the towers in the front.

*Make button for host to choose mode, the buttons including all the modes and a -ready button

Click to expand...

- Okay, what do you mean with this? In the last version I have added a full multiboard where you can select all the map's modes with your heyboard, isn't that enough? It should actually be like buttons.

*Random Spawn should be spawning randomly to different players instead of randoming all the mobs to go to the same player.

Click to expand...

- Ehm, ... I don't really understand but that's exactly how this mode work. And in my tests it worked like that so I am extremely surprised that it doesn't work like that for you, too.

It could be that the game is too harsh and fast for new players. That's because I have created this map with especially one guy who was extremely talented in this game and he always told me how to balance things right in the "pro" area - for players like him who already know how to play this.
I will add a starting cooldown for all creeps so that it shouldn't be possible to spam sheeps in the first second but giving players the option to build up a maze first.

I think your main problem is that all the good LTW players have gone these days and you have no real oponent anymore. :-/

Robbepop

I'm still here, and have never been defeated in a 1v1 of line tower wars! If you feel that the public games are getting too boring, I look forward to having an opponent who is challenging. Robbepop, maybe you could tell me who that pro player was, so that I could have a go at him, have some fun.

As for all of the complaints in the post above yours, they don't make any sense. Seems like the guy was pointing out flaws that didn't exist. Except for the initialization sending, that is a real issue that can discourage most new players from staying to learn how to play.

He is more or less inactiv but give it a try! ;-)

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/members/smokey_bud/

alright i saw the mode selection multiboard, it's good.

Robbepop said:

Hiho,

first of all thank you for your suggestions.
However, I really can't understand some of your points because it works actually very different from what you say.



- Why has the mode -ts (-terrainsnow) which just switches the terrain to a snowy one any influence on the gamers at all?
- I tried to enable instant building of towers but it seems to be not possible at that time, perhaps I can achieve it now ...
- I am against an auto-cast of the fireball ability. First of all spell towers should only be used by people who actually can handle them. They are meant for big and huge creeps to stun them to death and besides that they can help defending your maze actively by healing the towers in the front.



- Okay, what do you mean with this? In the last version I have added a full multiboard where you can select all the map's modes with your heyboard, isn't that enough? It should actually be like buttons.



- Ehm, ... I don't really understand but that's exactly how this mode work. And in my tests it worked like that so I am extremely surprised that it doesn't work like that for you, too.

It could be that the game is too harsh and fast for new players. That's because I have created this map with especially one guy who was extremely talented in this game and he always told me how to balance things right in the "pro" area - for players like him who already know how to play this.
I will add a starting cooldown for all creeps so that it shouldn't be possible to spam sheeps in the first second but giving players the option to build up a maze first.

I think your main problem is that all the good LTW players have gone these days and you have no real oponent anymore. :-/

Robbepop

Click to expand...

Your Modes are not the same as what it is shown, thats what I mean.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggestion for improvement.
*To make the game at least a little playable, players shouldn't enable the mode -fg, fastgame i meant, it just make the players keep summoning.

*Build tower should be instantly build finish. No Cool down to build towers.
*Make button for host to choose mode, the buttons including all the modes and a -ready button
*Random Spawn should be spawning randomly to different players instead of randoming all the mobs to go to the same player. Meaning your random spawn only go to 1 player. If only he leak, others plays will get the random spawn.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Look at the gold cost of of mobs and gold cost of tower, as your income grows, the lane defense is not manageable.

*Make button for host to choose mode, the buttons including all the modes and a -ready button
*Random Spawn should be spawning randomly to different players instead of randoming all the mobs to go to the same player. Meaning your random spawn only go to 1 player. If only he leak, others plays will get the random spawn.

Click to expand...

these two points still don't make any sense.
as I have said randomspawn mode sends units RANDOMLY. xD

and the button for mode selection you mentioned is exactly the multiboard where you can choose modes with your arrow keys. 0.o

your other suggestion with the cooldown to build towers will hopefully get implemented in the next version.

Robbepop

Robbepop said:

these two points still don't make any sense.
as I have said randomspawn mode sends units RANDOMLY. xD

and the button for mode selection you mentioned is exactly the multiboard where you can choose modes with your arrow keys. 0.o

your other suggestion with the cooldown to build towers will hopefully get implemented in the next version.

Robbepop

Click to expand...

So does your random spawn summon the creep randomly?
When you click sheep once, it goes to you, when you click sheep again, it goes to other player?
What I've observed is that when you summon creeps 5 times, the spawn all go to the same person, I don't see how that is uhm, random.

in my tests random spawn always sends creeps randomly (note that I am just using the wc3 randomization algorithm) to other player's bases. so for example: first creep to player 3, second to player 12, next to player 7 etc. ...

and that's how it actually works for me ingame. 0.o

perhaps you forgot to activate it?

Robbepop

btw: 666th post!!!! will make a new account and let this number be like that.

lol looks like you already passed that number. xD

hiho,

AI makes huge steps.
It is (nearly) already able to build a maze and send all kinds of creeps.
However, fine tuning is not done yet and a wise builder spell usage is also very hard to implement.

Robbepop

Interesting I would love to see this! Would it be able to implement in the 1x versions?

are the new v2.x versions so bad? o.o

No, they are good. Its just that the 1x versions are more fun to play among others. Without the elements this just feels like your own TD. xD But no seriously, 2x versions are great.

I will add new tower types to v2.x versions so that they won't be that repetitive.

Today I have tested the new and upcoming AI with me and 11 (!!) bot players and everything ran fluently without any additional lags. =)
Actually the hardest part on making an AI is that it is intelligent and doesn't require much computation power.
However, the AI still needs much fine tuning before I will release it.

How eagerly are you awaiting sharp towers (like in the good-old ltw) and hero towers?

Robbepop

Interesting ai sounds like it would pwn! xD Also the sharp and hero towers seem interesting as well. Would love to check them out!

I really want to see sharp towers put back into the game. Not so sure I like the idea of hero towers as a new tree, maybe stick them in as a branch off of the magic towers, still being used manually?

The hero towers should replace the elemental towers.
Every player can have only BUILD one hero tower in a whole game.
This hero tower can then be upgraded into 5 different elementals (Fire, Water, Earth, Holy, Unholy) and can level up to gain new abilities or to improve existing ones.
Besides that the hero tower will costs much at the beginning and will only be viable after about level 3-4 which will be reached after about 5 minutes the hero tower exists. Afterwards the hero tower will then be a major element of your towers.
If it gets destroyed you won't be able to rebuild it so build a good defense around it with walls etc. ... ;-)

Maybe I will add another spell to the spell towers - Chain Lightning which is able to damage multiple targets.
However, I am still not sure about that since hero towers should have at least one activ ability, too.

Robbepop

hm, ... atm I have problems with the elemental towers which I have planned to be very customizable. However, the wc3 engine once again cuts my plans because there are only 5 hero abilities allowed.
now I have to do an ugly work around or life with it ...

Robbepop

Robbepop said:

hm, ... atm I have problems with the elemental towers which I have planned to be very customizable. However, the wc3 engine once again cuts my plans because there are only 5 hero abilities allowed.
now I have to do an ugly work around or life with it ...

Robbepop

Click to expand...

Do what I've done many times, and what most RPG's do...

Don't use the regular hero skill system. Use a spellbook, and have a different method of spending skill points to learn abilities to put into that skill book and level them up.

that's what I have meant with an ugly work around.
however, I am currently figuring out if the elemental uber-towers would fit into the current gameplay.
they are meant to be a super-tower which players can highly customize but they actually don't fit into a classical tower defense game.

Robbepop

edit: ok I have made a non-filan decision to not implement the elemental towers yet. however, it could be that I will implement them in future versions.

the next version basically focuses on the newly added AI.
to be honest the AI isn't immortal but it is either non-cheating!
so if you activate one or multiple bot slots as host you will actually be facing normal oponents and that was the goal.^^

What the AI can do:
- It builds towers in a maze and upgrades specific tower types dependent on what creeps you send.
- The AI sends creeps in order to increase its income.
- If you destroy towers the AI builder will rebuild them dependent on what it needs most.
- It currently supports all possible tower types however until now is not able to use the abilities of the spell towers - may be added later.

So you can see that the AI has one major weakness - it can not use builder spells and the creep sending isn't implemented offensively but only in order to increase income. For that the AI orientates on its own income and the average income of the players.

All in all I have tried my best to make everything as fast as possible.
I have tested the AI with 11 bots in total and the game was nearly running for me like it was without bots.
So 1-4 bots shouldn't have an impact on even lower systems. ;-)
If you play completely without bots the computing time is nearly not enlarged compared to previous versions.

I will do some fine tuning and further improve the AI and then release the next version soon. =)

Robbepop

I can't wait! It sounds awesome!

Think you could make an AI for 1.x? I know it'd be a hell of a lot more work, as they have a complex elemental tree, but it'd be awesome!

Hiho,

I don't think that I develop an AI for the v1.x versions as the AI is bound to all the new encoding which I have made just before (recoded the whole map). So to implement this AI I would have to recode the whole v1.x versions too.

At first I want to know how good or bad the current version of the AI is.
I will release it soon after I have made some adjustments.

Robbepop

Hiho,

I finally released the new version with the A.I., the new Sharp Towers and even with Elemental Towers. =)

Have fun & good luck!!

Robbepop

Awesome! I can't wait to try it.

Edit: Well, in the beginning, it seemed as though the bots were cheating. When I had 60 income and 14 level 1 towers, the bots had 200-400 income and 50 towers each. Towards the end it balanced out, and I ended up stomping them, but in the first few minutes it seemed like they were getting extra gold out of nowhere.

The instant tower build feature is neat and convenient, but at the same time... Unfortunately, it can easily be abused. If a player is being attacked, he doesn't even need to make a wall. He can just run back and forth instantly making rows of towers to distract the attackers from proceeding to the maze, which, when EC is off, can't be corrected by sending the units down.

The gold didn't seem to be automatically converting to lumber like it used to, which is extremely annoying when you're playing streaming income mode with an income per sec of 1 million. The mountain giants, why did you make them attack fast with low damage? I liked the way they were like bosses, sort of, before. I'd like to see their attack speed cut in half and their damage tripled (They are a bit weak for a 500,000 gold unit that hugely destroys your income... When 20,000 gold buys units with about 1/3 of the strength without lowering income.

I like what you did with the blade towers, it's cool that they have an AoE damage now, I'd been thinking of that for a while.

The elemental towers have too much health. With 3,000 health without upgrades, players can repeatedly place them to stall attackers. They should be given a longer build time, say, 10 seconds, so they can't be repeatedly placed to stall attackers. I also think, since we get only one of them, they should have their cost doubled and their efficiency doubled.

The "No Limits" mode didn't seem to work when I tested it. We were all still limited to 50 towers and 50 food at the start.

I like the new multiboard for modes. But at the same time, I'd like to still have the option of using the commands, because one particular mode I liked to do, I called "famine" in which I would give players 15 tower limit and 10 food limit.

The builder's build list is getting too filled up. Blades should be added as a branch of walls. Elementals should be a branch of spell towers. Cannon towers should be a branch of missile towers.

It's cool that you've got the AI's playing, though. They seemed to be OP in the first couple of minutes, but they balanced out later.

TLI-Inferno said:

Awesome! I can't wait to try it.

Edit: Well, in the beginning, it seemed as though the bots were cheating. When I had 60 income and 14 level 1 towers, the bots had 200-400 income and 50 towers each. Towards the end it balanced out, and I ended up stomping them, but in the first few minutes it seemed like they were getting extra gold out of nowhere.

Have you played against easy bots? Normal bots gain +50% income and insane bots have a 100% income boost. Only easy bots really don't cheat. =) For that you could have looked into the F9-Log. >.>

The instant tower build feature is neat and convenient, but at the same time... Unfortunately, it can easily be abused. If a player is being attacked, he doesn't even need to make a wall. He can just run back and forth instantly making rows of towers to distract the attackers from proceeding to the maze, which, when EC is off, can't be corrected by sending the units down.

I haven't thought about that in the first place while adding the fast build and upgrade feature to the map to be honest. It could be a problem but as long as you are building towers to defend your maze you aren't able to do anything else which is going to damage your income gain in the long terms.

The gold didn't seem to be automatically converting to lumber like it used to, which is extremely annoying when you're playing streaming income mode with an income per sec of 1 million. The mountain giants, why did you make them attack fast with low damage? I liked the way they were like bosses, sort of, before. I'd like to see their attack speed cut in half and their damage tripled (They are a bit weak for a 500,000 gold unit that hugely destroys your income... When 20,000 gold buys units with about 1/3 of the strength without lowering income.

Have you tried to enable autoswap? Look into the F9-Log for the correct command. In v2.x players have to activate it in order to have autowap gold to lumber.

I like what you did with the blade towers, it's cool that they have an AoE damage now, I'd been thinking of that for a while.

The elemental towers have too much health. With 3,000 health without upgrades, players can repeatedly place them to stall attackers. They should be given a longer build time, say, 10 seconds, so they can't be repeatedly placed to stall attackers. I also think, since we get only one of them, they should have their cost doubled and their efficiency doubled.

I also thought about empowering elemental towers but I wanted to test them first. =)

The "No Limits" mode didn't seem to work when I tested it. We were all still limited to 50 towers and 50 food at the start.

It works but I am sure that you had autolimit tower/food still enabled while playing with nolimits mode. If you really want to play without any limitations then you have to deactivate those pre-activated modes. I have made it work like that because then players can decide whether they want to have unlimited towers and food, unlimited towers or unlimited food.^^

I like the new multiboard for modes. But at the same time, I'd like to still have the option of using the commands, because one particular mode I liked to do, I called "famine" in which I would give players 15 tower limit and 10 food limit.

You actually CAN still use the commands. Just use them. In the beginning of the game they are listed like in the old versions. Only some typos have been changed.

The builder's build list is getting too filled up. Blades should be added as a branch of walls. Elementals should be a branch of spell towers. Cannon towers should be a branch of missile towers.

Yeah, you are right. Perhaps I can find a clean way to improve the overview of the build page. I already thought about adding a new build page for advanced structures like the elemental towers, aura towers, mines and scout towers.

It's cool that you've got the AI's playing, though. They seemed to be OP in the first couple of minutes, but they balanced out later.

Click to expand...

Robbepop

Right, I'm just too used to the 1.x versions. Some of the points I made had already been dealt with, and I just hadn't noticed XD.

Well then there are only minor issues.

The instant build (No, it does not handicap the players income) as, when using hotkeys, a player can queue actions and spam hotkeys to use his gold on sending every now and then while still constantly insta-building towers. So this instant build feature still needs to be removed. Instant upgrades are okay, though.

As well as a few other issues which you already addressed.