Sunken Ruins Tower Defense

[deepstrasz]

1. Summon Skeleton Archer doens't have the E hotkey as in its title. Or it does but Abomination also has it.
2. Maybe you could work more on the terrain. It's too plain and uninviting. Even some dystopias look nicer.
   
3. Kind of sucks to have units named Level[number of current wave].
4. I don't get what's Fuckoff for when you have Sell? Also, what's with the name?
5. You can't build regular towers here (mine base). But then how did I build two anyway, right near the mill? Why should I even be able to teleport the tower builder there then?
6. Temple of the Damned and Skeleton Mage have the same hotkey: R.
7. Kel'thuzad!? Anyway, don't use hero models for units because they have no death animations and the bodies remain on the ground.
8. On the Zombie, the Skeleton Archer isn't properly placed after the Skeleton Mage but between Attack and Stop.
9. The defender has attack and armour slots but how to fill them? You can't. They're just there for no reason. Upgrades act differently on defenders.
   
10. Also check on other units because their next tower upgrade is placed between Attack and Stop.

Approved.

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If you're not satisfied with the review and wish another opinion, contact the other reviewers or use the staff contact:
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[UreDe4D]

thanks for the review, some comments on your points:

1. Summon Skeleton Archer doens't have the E hotkey as in its title. Or it does but Abomination also has it. -> OK, will take care of that in next update
2. Maybe you could work more on the terrain. It's too plain and uninviting. Even some dystopias look nicer. - > Well it's a TD, it was not my main priority, but ok, i might give it a few tweaks
   
3. Kind of sucks to have units named Level[number of current wave]. -> noted
4. I don't get what's Fuckoff for when you have Sell? Also, what's with the name? -> it's for when someone builds in your area and you dont want him to, hence the name
5. You can't build regular towers here (mine base). But then how did I build two anyway, right near the mill? Why should I even be able to teleport the tower builder there then? -> how DID you do it?, but ok, i will adapt the system, so far noone was able to do that
6. Temple of the Damned and Skeleton Mage have the same hotkey: R. -> OK, will take care of that in next update
7. Kel'thuzad!? Anyway, don't use hero models for units because they have no death animations and the bodies remain on the ground. -> You don't like Kel'Thuzad? noted
8. On the Zombie, the Skeleton Archer isn't properly placed after the Skeleton Mage but between Attack and Stop. -> the upgrade position is linked to the tower position in the build menu, some some of them are bound to end up between the attack and stop button, i will think about rearranging the build menu from bottom to top instead of from top to bottom, maybe then this could be avoided
9. The defender has attack and armour slots but how to fill them? You can't. They're just there for no reason. Upgrades act differently on defenders. -> if you play ultimate plunder mode they are used
   
10. Also check on other units because their next tower upgrade is placed between Attack and Stop. -> see point 8

 

[deepstrasz]

if you play ultimate plunder mode they are used

Yeah, saw that after writing this. Forgot to remove it. Sorry.

But, it'd be better to just leave the numbers not the whole sentences with them when replying.

 

[UreDe4D]

Map has been updated to Version 1.10
I had a lot of issues due to blizzards patches, but i think i finally have a working version again. please report any problems!

 

[UreDe4D]

updated to Version 1.20

 

[UreDe4D]

updated to version 1.30 this time less of a balance update, but to improve play-ability by making things a little more obvious, and also sadly, to prevent people from killing each others towers

 

[UreDe4D]

map has been updated to version 1.40; check out the new race, "A rich mans world"

 

[Macadamia]

Hello there !

With the constant work on aMazing Balls TD, I haven't had that much time to properly test this TD, but I wanted to leave some feedback.

First of all, this is a nice map !
Some people who are starting mapmaking will appreciate the fact that all triggers are in GUI.
In spite of that exclusive GUI usage, it does not leak much.

As a comparison, my map script is fully written in Jass (or let's say basic vJass) and it has much more leaks than this. And that is not an opinion, I have tested it with a handle counter, so I know what I am talking about. I suppose some ideas I had about optimizing my own map, such as recycling creeps, where not such a good idea in the end of the day. Anyways, thats an important point, because this means the map will not lag. And trust me this does matter A LOT in a TD based on mazing.

Next. Ok I have limited view for the moment as I only chose the Galactic Empire theme so far - to get used to the towers, and test them all. I might update this feedback in the future when I have tested the other themes.
The theme is a really appealing idea. First it makes the game much less boring, even when you play it repeatedly.
The models chosen for the towers all fit the Star Wars Empire's macrocosm. You even have Darth Vader !
The ships as anti-air towers fit really nicely.
The limits for powerful towers are a sensible choice.


There is a side game where you have a kind of townhall where you can train peons to mine gold, and wisps to gather wood.
They can be attacked by waves of "pirates". But you can train a defender, that can be upgraded. You can upgrade his attack and defense, and even research devotion aura for your gatherers too. The defender can build watch towers to help him fighting the pirates, and this is quite required in case of flying pirate units.

This side game is much less prone to give you headaches than the complicated techtrees of more complex TDs, and won't distract you from your maze for too long.

Overall the game balance is a bit difficult in the beginning, but will even out as you start building your maze and then add stronger towers.
The gold returned from sold towers if 75% if I remember correctly, and this will force you to think carefully about how you will make your maze evolve.


Of course, like every map, it has a few things that can be improved. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the improvements I consider would improve the map :

1) Make the towers face their targets.
It is a bit disturbing to see them fire in their back.

2) Fine tune projectiles.
ATST has the same projectile as the Clonetroopers. The laser model is a very tiny model it would be easy to add another one - a red one maybe -
ATAT projectile is the same as the Stardestroyers, and its Z launch is a bit off, the result, combined with not facing the target, really looks strange
imho, maybe just use a different model for a longer rather than larger laser, with the same color as the one you would chose for the ATST.

3) The upgrades for the Sith Apprentice line, leading to the most powerful towers (Darth Sidious,Darth Vader and Darth Maul) is a pretty interesting feature, but for some reasons, there are issues when you try to upgrade them when you have more than one selected.
I didn't manage to trace the issue, but a couple of times, when I tried to upgrade 2 at the same time (range, damage and attack speed), it created a third one just next to the second one I had selected.

4) The Death Star is a wonderful utility tower for upgrades, but I am unsure allowing anti air towers (especially the most powerful ones) to hit ground units is a good idea. As their damage is on par price wise compared to ground towers, the risk is people might end up building these anti air towers only.

5) Remove Ensnare and Mirror Image from the defenders, they don't work because of missing upgrades required and they are not useful once guard towers are built.

6) I have very quickly tested another theme, Zelda, and it seems there are much more possibilities for cross upgrades, but maybe that was intended.

7) Some towers have no sound like Darth Vador and Darth Maul, maybe try to find some UnitSoundSet that could fir (this will be difficult though) or even better if you don't mind the size of the map, use real quotes from star wars to make custom unit sound sets.

8) This kind of TD could easily have its building zone contained in a single rect (region in GUI) that would allow some kind of anti blocking check . But that is not a necessity at all.

9) Jabba and Rancor Eat ability probably need a much further range to make them really useful.

10) Give more width to the names on the multiboard, as the name tends to collide with the number of kills.

11) Create Passive versions of the icons you use for passive abilities, using normal icons for these can become confusing.

Thats it for the moment, its a fun map with variety and challenge, and is definitely worth playing !!!!

EDIT : Discard Point 5), I indeed missed a building

 

[UreDe4D]

so, thanks again, let's go through the points 1 by 1

1) i never thought about that, as i haven't seen it before in a tower defense other than yours, i'm not even 100% sure on how to do it

2) i only have two different projectile sizes and i literally have zero modelling knowledge to change that. as for the rest, i will look into that and maybe tweak those a little bit

3) i'm not 100% sure i understand what happened there, i could not reproduce the problem

4) so far this has not been an issue, in fact people so far rarely use the upgrade until very late in the game; price wise the anti air towers are not as effective as the normal ground towers, as the unlocked attack has much slower attack speed/damage

5) resolved

6) yes that is intended

7) i will probably not use real quotes, but i agree the current sound set for some units are a little boring

8) never had issues with blocking so far

9) hell no, they are pretty good already, i have seen people defeat entire waves with quick micro on the rancor alone

10) i already increased it a little in the last version, freaking battle tags .....

11) again, for changing the icon to a passive one i would need someone to do that for me, no idea on how to do that

 

[Macadamia]

Hi !

As for towers facing their targets, it is all related to the Root ability (think about Ancient Protectors), the problem is, unlike me you don't use an ability to move your towers, so or you decide to do something similar to my Movement Mode (a modded Root and nothing else), it will be quite straightforward, you just change the Root / unroot icons, the tooltips and you're done. Note that Root even allows your flying towers (towers with height really) not to fly on the floor.

If you don't want to bother with being able to move the towers, the problem will be hiding the icon. I know it is possible, even maybe easy, although I haven't yet tried as I have not found the need to hide an ability yet. Maybe adding and removing your custom Root ability to the towers once they are built / upgraded would do the trick.

As for the lasers, I could do some quick model editing for you to give you a choice of laser sizes and colors.

And as for the icons, then again I can help, but for this you'll need more patience as I am really working hard on aMazing Balls TD at the moment to make the v1.2 really functional. And as it seems I still have leaks and performance problem, it takes quite some time to find better ways to optimize the map (at the moment I am trying to attach most triggers for autocast and custom abilities like GoBackHome and FlashForward to the corresponding towers. Then I can remove them when the tower is sold or killed (by an unhappy Ball). This will also be more efficient as it will be less demanding o,n the game engine. It will also allow me to use an event like A unit comes in range (of the towers) to fire the triggers rather than A unit is attacked (the attacked units being the balls so you can imagine the number of times the event would fire).

Anyways, this was just to give you an idea of the load of work I am trying to get done as soon as possible.

But you can help me if you want these passive icons, in a very simple way :
- find all the icons you use for passive abilities that have the normal abilities border, save their path from Object Editor into a single text file, end post this txt file here.
I will then be able to find them on the Casc storage of the game and edit them to make them passive for you.

As for the facing target problem again, if you do not succeed, I can give it a try to find the appropriate method for your map and then let you know what to do - but please try it by yourself first, it is the best way to learn.

Note : once the towers will face their targets, it will be much easier to find a better match for the projectiles, as well as their launch Z value.

 

[UreDe4D]

Map has been updated to Version 1.50, some small balance changes mainly for the newer races

 

[Eat_Bacon_Daily]

Tried this game with friends and I really enjoyed it. I really love when map makers take an age-old game type and add some new flavour to it. By that I mean the added macro mechanic of a base that get's attacked. I think some aspects of the game could still use some polish, but I think you have a great project going here. Very impressed with your creativity

 

[UreDe4D]

thx for the feedback, glad you enjoy it, if you have any specific points you would like to get addressed just list them and i'll see what i can do in the next update

 

[UreDe4D]

Time for an update, along with some minor fixes (mainly tooltips and race descriptions) this update brings a new race to the table:

The Trade Federation

If you like mazing you will love this race, they get an extra 50 Tower limit and very cheap first towers. they rely mainly on quantity and buffs like auras and weapon upgrades. Their AA is a little lacking as they do not get a strong AA splash tower, so you will need a fleet of fighters to fend off those pesky flyers.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated

 

[UreDe4D]

Took a while, but i finally got around to finish the new version, this one features a new Race and also a new game mode. Enjoy!

 

[UreDe4D]

after way too much delay, it's time for a new update with an all singing, all fighting new Race: Creatures of the forest

also some other small fixes. details in patchlog