Falcon Tower / Hallowed Falcon

[Kyrbi0]

I want to love this but... Oh wait, I can.

Excellent!

 

[stein123]

Awesome!

 

[Bawbz]

5/5 would commission

 

[Krasniy Half-elf]

WoW!

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

oh wow consistent tower that gets along well with other stuff in game , hope your mother gets better man what a shame i cant help .

 

[Flinn]

That's a really nice tower, with the falcon stonework on the roof, and the falcon made of light missile, great details!

 

[ForgottenNightmare]

Okay. I do like the model design of both the upgrade and the upgrade's missle. However, I have a really big issue with this new upgrade.

While I could reasonably see the Falcon Tower likely taking the place of one of the upgrades that the HumanAlliance Towers get for a more holy light based HumanAlliance faction, I have to ask what the purpose of this additional tower upgrade would be for actually adding it in with the HumanTower's generic alternative upgrades for comparison? Each upgrade has a specific function via the traits given to it. The generic birth model that is the Scout Tower is for keeping an eye on the surrounding territories and doesn't exactly do anything else such as produce troops or even food for that matter. That is why it costs so little in resources to actually produce. The Guard Tower, which is the first upgrade seen in the campaigns, is the finest and most generic defense you can have being capable of striking any and everything from land units to even aerial units. The Canon Tower has powerful artillery strikes, but can't exactly attack things up close to it nor is it capable of attacking aerial units making its function more suited to taking out artillery/siege units like the Orc's Catapult/Demolisher, the Undead's Abomination, the Night Elves' Ballista/Glaive Thrower, or even the HumanAlliance's very own SteamTank/SiegeEngine as well as other units upon approach. The Arcane Tower is kind of a basic bitch generic tower that has a more limited damage pool in comparison to the artillery powerhouse that is the Canon Tower the Guard Tower which shares the versatile damage traits with the Arcane Tower. However, the Arcane Tower is in no way superior to the Guard Tower so much so that it could be the most generic defense that the faction can pick. It's damage type is magical meaning that it is great against units that are ghosts, ethereal, or of another particular defense-type, a trait that the Guard-Tower lacks. It alse has a Goblin Observatory Reveal Location feature that is weaker than the Goblin Observatory, but is still pretty useful even though when combined with the offensive capabilities of the Arcane Tower still pales in comparitive power to the Canon and Guard Towers. Thus, we come to the last trait that was given to the Arcane Tower to make it comparable and unique giving it the role of anti-hero/anti-caster Tower due to it getting a similar Feedback ability (which is a bit stronger than the troop version if I am not mistaken) that the HumanAlliance Spellbreakers (Anti-hero/Anti-caster troops) get.

Now, if handled properly, then maybe I probably wouldn't mind seeing a HumanAlliance faction with the addition of this tower upgrade added in. However, I am simply having trouble seeing the reason to have this tower sitting toe to toe with the previous upgrades outside of having the upgrade replace another upgrade overall. In conclusion of this post which had a lot of thought and revision in what was put down for it's first time posting and likely not having any edits following, I am displeased to say that I have two ratings for this tower. Under the premise that anyone using it for their own maps and reasons which involve replacing a previous tower upgrade (like the GuardTower or ArcaneTower), I rate this a 4/5 model. It looks good and works well. Under the premise of it being an additional upgrade to stand side by side with the previous 3 upgrades that the HumanAlliance get, I feel like it would more likely be unbalanced in the sense that it will step on the toes of other towers if the map creator didn't know what they were doing, thus I rate this a 2/5 model.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Okay. I do like the model design of both the upgrade and the upgrade's missle. However, I have a really big issue with this new upgrade.

While I could reasonably see the Falcon Tower likely taking the place of one of the upgrades that the HumanAlliance Towers get for a more holy light based HumanAlliance faction, I have to ask what the purpose of this additional tower upgrade would be for actually adding it in with the HumanTower's generic alternative upgrades for comparison? Each upgrade has a specific function via the traits given to it. The generic birth model that is the Scout Tower is for keeping an eye on the surrounding territories and doesn't exactly do anything else such as produce troops or even food for that matter. That is why it costs so little in resources to actually produce. The Guard Tower, which is the first upgrade seen in the campaigns, is the finest and most generic defense you can have being capable of striking any and everything from land units to even aerial units. The Canon Tower has powerful artillery strikes, but can't exactly attack things up close to it nor is it capable of attacking aerial units making its function more suited to taking out artillery/siege units like the Orc's Catapult/Demolisher, the Undead's Abomination, the Night Elves' Ballista/Glaive Thrower, or even the HumanAlliance's very own SteamTank/SiegeEngine as well as other units upon approach. The Arcane Tower is kind of a basic bitch generic tower that has a more limited damage pool in comparison to the artillery powerhouse that is the Canon Tower the Guard Tower which shares the versatile damage traits with the Arcane Tower. However, the Arcane Tower is in no way superior to the Guard Tower so much so that it could be the most generic defense that the faction can pick. It's damage type is magical meaning that it is great against units that are ghosts, ethereal, or of another particular defense-type, a trait that the Guard-Tower lacks. It alse has a Goblin Observatory Reveal Location feature that is weaker than the Goblin Observatory, but is still pretty useful even though when combined with the offensive capabilities of the Arcane Tower still pales in comparitive power to the Canon and Guard Towers. Thus, we come to the last trait that was given to the Arcane Tower to make it comparable and unique giving it the role of anti-hero/anti-caster Tower due to it getting a similar Feedback ability (which is a bit stronger than the troop version if I am not mistaken) that the HumanAlliance Spellbreakers (Anti-hero/Anti-caster troops) get.

Now, if handled properly, then maybe I probably wouldn't mind seeing a HumanAlliance faction with the addition of this tower upgrade added in. However, I am simply having trouble seeing the reason to have this tower sitting toe to toe with the previous upgrades outside of having the upgrade replace another upgrade overall. In conclusion of this post which had a lot of thought and revision in what was put down for it's first time posting and likely not having any edits following, I am displeased to say that I have two ratings for this tower. Under the premise that anyone using it for their own maps and reasons which involve replacing a previous tower upgrade (like the GuardTower or ArcaneTower), I rate this a 4/5 model. It looks good and works well. Under the premise of it being an additional upgrade to stand side by side with the previous 3 upgrades that the HumanAlliance get, I feel like it would more likely be unbalanced in the sense that it will step on the toes of other towers if the map creator didn't know what they were doing, thus I rate this a 2/5 model.

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this analysis and your post, which I respect (as a fellow wall-o-text guy, if nothing else ). However I think your analysis is a bit flawed, & more importantly, you use it to suggest a fairly low rating with specious reasoning.

#1) It's true that the existing Alliance tower upgrades cover a lot of "mechanical ground" (in gameplay terms, they cover many of the important Functions you want Towers for). Here's a (much more succinct) list:

• multi-purpose/jack-of-all-trades (Guard)
• anti-ground/-artillery (Cannon)
• anti-caster/anti-Hero-harass (Arcane)

But it doesn't take long to come up with additional design space that this Tower could fill, some slightly different then the above, others totally different:

• anti-air only
• anti-hero
• anti-groups (i.e. masses of smaller units, esp. air)
• anti-Giants (i.e. best for dealing with singular, powerful targets)
• anti-magic (specifically able to target & destroy buffs/debuffs, or casters when casting)

So I'm confused by your assertion that there's "not much room unless you're using this as a replacement".

===

#2) & more importantly, I don't think it's appropriate to base the ranking you give to a model on the potential design space you (don't) see. That's entirely up to the individual modders who will use it; their ingenuity, creativity, and other skills will determine all that. A rating is more about "how good is this model" than "how useful" (especially in the downwards direction).

I mean obviously you're free to use whatever metrics you want to place your ranking, but it seems absurd to me to go to an asset & say "well it's really high-quality, well-made, would be 4/5... But I can't think of a good way to use it so 2/5". See what I mean?

 

[ForgottenNightmare]

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this analysis and your post, which I respect (as a fellow wall-o-text guy, if nothing else ). However I think your analysis is a bit flawed, & more importantly, you use it to suggest a fairly low rating with specious reasoning.

#1) It's true that the existing Alliance tower upgrades cover a lot of "mechanical ground" (in gameplay terms, they cover many of the important Functions you want Towers for). Here's a (much more succinct) list:

• multi-purpose/jack-of-all-trades (Guard)
• anti-ground/-artillery (Cannon)
• anti-caster/anti-Hero-harass (Arcane)

But it doesn't take long to come up with additional design space that this Tower could fill, some slightly different then the above, others totally different:

• anti-air only
• anti-hero
• anti-groups (i.e. masses of smaller units, esp. air)
• anti-Giants (i.e. best for dealing with singular, powerful targets)
• anti-magic (specifically able to target & destroy buffs/debuffs, or casters when casting)

So I'm confused by your assertion that there's "not much room unless you're using this as a replacement".

===

#2) & more importantly, I don't think it's appropriate to base the ranking you give to a model on the potential design space you (don't) see. That's entirely up to the individual modders who will use it; their ingenuity, creativity, and other skills will determine all that. A rating is more about "how good is this model" than "how useful" (especially in the downwards direction).

I mean obviously you're free to use whatever metrics you want to place your ranking, but it seems absurd to me to go to an asset & say "well it's really high-quality, well-made, would be 4/5... But I can't think of a good way to use it so 2/5". See what I mean?

I definitely respect your well of personal thought and opinion to which I respond that my analysis just might be flawed. However, I don't think it is as flawed as my analysis of the specs of each and every faction and their base's defensive capabilities. So in fairness, I will defend myself on why my analysis is more spot on. Let me start by saying that most of the time models are made with an idea in mind already. The HumanTower was meant to be able to be upgraded and be versatile I will not make a model that I, myself, didn't have an idea already in mind for. Therefore, the Spellbringers visual above is what I have to rely on for what specs someone may have in mind. Now to move into your arguments one at a time.

#1) Of course there are always other roles that a tower could fill. I never said that it couldn't. I merely stated that I don't see how the tower be a fit due to much of my own experiences from what I have seen in the campaigns or in most TD maps. To further this, the very opening of my post and analysis is literally inquiring about the tower's specs, which I furthered the importance of by explaining the specs of each HumanAlliance Tower. Which I will do so again.

Scout Tower - Does no damage, has little cost by way of resources, and average structure defense. Serves as an early warning sign for when enemies are encroaching on your territories.

Guard Tower - Average building defense, reasonably heightened upgrade cost to make up for the low cost of the Scout Tower as we are adding on additional traits, has a basic damage type, attacks land and aerial troops, and deals modest damage.

Canon Tower - Average building defense, reasonably heightened upgrade cost to make up for the low cost of the Scout Tower as we are adding on additional traits, carries the siege/artillery/giant damage type, deals a crap load of damage with a miniscule splash damage, only attacks land units and has set range limits to which it can do.

Arcane Tower - Average building defense, reasonably heightened upgrade cost to make up for the low cost of the Scout Tower as we are adding on additional traits, carries the magic damage type, attacks land and air units, deals low damage, allows you to reveal unexplored areas of the map, and can acquire the ability to destroy a caster's mana whether they are a spellcasting troop or a hero (from my experience, a hero that runs out of magic more quickly tends to often die more quickly, then again that could simply be just from how I play).

The roles for each of these towers would be as the following.

Scout Tower - Watching out for enemies.

Guard Tower - Versatile/DPS

Canon Tower - Anti-Siege/Anti-Group/Anti-Land-only/DPS

Arcane Tower - Anti-Caster/Anti-Hero

All of these towers combined practically cover every role that you can think of for even a TD map and do so well. So how you are getting confused over it not being able to fit with the standard variety is beyond me. You must have some creative way to add it in with a standard map and I am looking forward to seeing. Additionally, you mentioned anti-air only towers. From my experience, those are some of the weakest towers that I have come across even for a TD map. I never put any anti-air only towers in my maps and never will for the following reasons that I have come to notice from most campaigns as well as most TD maps that I have played in:

1. Unreasonable Prices - Now, this may not have been in every campaign or TD map that I have played, but there were enough that I have played to warrant this noting this reason and in those campaigns/TD Maps these towers were reasonably well-balanced in all of the right ways, but this area specifically being either too cheap that I could spam build them as defensive walls for a defensive tower that is far more superior in my opinion or simply too expensive that it just doesn't justify actually making them when another tower that attacks air units for less damage but also attacks land units for the same amount of damage is cheaper and kind of covers another big flaw anti-air only towers tend to have which is also listed.
2. Low Damage Values - This is the second biggest concern that I have for the towers in general. While the visual that I have seen of the Falcon Tower which may just be an anti-air only tower shows them dealing damage to gargoyles and significant damage at that due to the gargoyles being taken out relatively quickly, other maps, especially maps in campaigns that I have seen these kinds of towers in haven't packed that kind of gumption.
3. Low Defense Value - This tends to be the anti-air only towers biggest flaw and my main issue with them in general. They tend to hold an average structure defense value while having a significant vulnerability. Of course, I don't want these towers to have defense values so high that they become nigh-impervious to harm, but not having some modified compensation means that every anti-air only tower is practically vulnerable to being cluster screwed outright by land troops which each faction typically has a versatile array of in an average of 9ish types, all of whom have their own specs which make them fit into their own unique rolls.

#2) This is easily an argument that I could agree with you on in regards to the remark of it being how good the model is. Even if I were to be more fair to the modeler in that regard, my rating first known rating wouldn't change. It is a quality model, clearly works well in-game. Right there is a 4/5 rating. However, a model that is good is supposed to be useful. My previous analysis was moreso simply me stating where I, myself, as an individual modder would likely see it being the most useful outside of TD Maps and rating it on how likely I am certain someone would be to make a map that added this model in as a fourth upgrade for the HumanTower which is what the designer clearly did with this model.

All in all, I rated it on its quality, it's usefulness, and its design, both the individual design specifically looking at the fourth upgrade which presumably would be the Falcon Tower itself and the overall design which is what the modeler has given us (basically the HumanAllianceTower with a fourth upgrade). I give it a 4/5 for it's quality, usefulness, and the individual design of fourth upgrade with the understanding of where I would find it useful due to theme and how I would likely implement the model into one of my maps, and a 2/5 for it's quality, usefulness, and overall design which forces me to consider adding the tower into the standard HumanAlliance faction to play against other factions which is something that I won't do even for fun because of my previous statement about how the HumanAlliance faction's towers practically cover all known roles that a tower can potentially be fitted to. It would be tough to not only add the additional upgrade to a map, but also spec it out to your own vision, while keeping it relatively balanced in comparison to what you already have as well. May the modeler forgive me if that is at all superficial. I don't mean to come off negative by any means.

 

[ILH]

4000 polygons are way too much for a new upgrade of the human tower. I suggest reducing it by removing the default human towers from the model.

 

[Deolrin]

4000 polygons are way too much for a new upgrade of the human tower. I suggest reducing it by removing the default human towers from the model.

Sorry for interjecting, but -
Polygons that are not rendered (because they are invisible) do not affect the game at all. Only visible polies count. That's why Blizzard could get away with very high poly-counts on their upgradeable buildings, such as the Town Hall, and morphing units, such as the Demon Hunter and Druid of the Claw. So in essence it is just a useless number if we're talking about a model that has several different versions visible at different points, the only polycount that matters is the individual parts that are visible at any given moment for the sake of the renderer.
That's why the suggestion to remove the default human tower is meaningless for polycount (in terms of optimization) BUT it can help optimize the file size.
Personally I would see it as a choice, ideally. The full replacement version or a standalone version.

 

[ILH]

A pretty tower upgrade to the scout tower with a missile effect.
Works in-game. Approved!

 

[HeavenlyHero]

Friend, you should give the bpl files other names because I can't use this model at the same time as the "Electrik Spark" model.

 

[Vinz]

Friend, you should give the bpl files other names because I can't use this model at the same time as the "Electrik Spark" model.

Yes you can. I use hundreds of my models in my testmaps. These are identical textures. You don't need to re-import or replace them if your map already has them.

 

[HeavenlyHero]

Yes you can. I use hundreds of my models in my testmaps. These are identical textures. You don't need to re-import or replace them if your map already has them.

Oh, it's true, it's already working for me, many thanks friend. My greatest respects to your wonderful models.