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Tower Damage || Poor Scalling and the effect on game play

By on July 18, 2009 11:44:16 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Tower damage in this game is badly implemented. In the first 5 levels towers rape face rediculously hard, and after level 7 - 10 players are walking through lanes unhindered by 4 + towers hitting them. It's not as if taking a tower down is difficult, so tower position and damage output should be a large part of the game through all 20 levels and some. This is easily corrected by giving towers % based damage on DG.

Here is the current situation, towers hit for about 300 and we mitigate enough to take it to 250 - 150. At level 10, with 5 k HP and 40 % mitigation running into 4 towers for 20 seconds is survivable. This means safety is not on your line of towers anymore. This really hinders gameplay in the fact that the already 'winning' team gets rewarded by being able to hunt down weaker players inside of there base.

Towers should be % based damage, so they scale throughout the game. This would create more innitiative to take down towers faster, and benefit defending your towers much more than defending them means now. Letting 2 - 4 towers fall is currently not a big deal, but when towers are actually useful it becomes important to keep them alive. Lets say a 10% mitigatable damage from towers was implemented. This means literally, 10 hits from a tower to a low armored DG will kill them. If a DG is well geared in armor, it will take about 20 hits. In a situation as above with 4 towers hitting this buff DG, his survivability would only be around 5 seconds, and never more than double the survivability of the 'loosing' or 'poorly equiped' team.

This helps keep a safety line closer to the battle front for both sides. It helps even the playing field regardless of who has the edge, and will increase the playability of the game as well as reduce rage quiting due to dying from being chased into your citadel at level 10 and still dying.

Some other changes that must be made to towers, is that they target DG. Always target DG if they are within range. This means minion builds either attack with just minions, or better be prepared to take the heat from a tower they are attacking. It also gives a great benefit to classes that have effective stuns to towers, such as ICE TB and Tower Sucking Rook. It also will reduce early game destruction of towers from keeping players from using towers / grunts to soak damage while they pelt the towers. Regulus auto attack is still an issue, but when your viable tower hunters becomes minion builds, tower hunting rook, ice TB, siege QoT and regulus, it is much better than the current state where any DG can kill towers without much fear.

Small changes like this are not only easily implementable, they will change the game in a beneficial way for future players. It will also add new elements of game play for the more seasoned players, and create a more challenging environment than the current play field.

+7 Karma | 56 Replies
July 18, 2009 12:16:11 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

/signed

 

Overall great idea. And i like that the damage % of hp the demigods take would be mitigatable. This would make armor still useful instead of just RAW health. And would make health stacking slightly less useful if you could survive against a tower the same amount of time. Damage gloves would still need a buff but the fact that damage would be more useful against towers would make the game more dps and health oriented instead of FULL ON HEALTH STACKING FTW. Health stacking was the main issue to towers mostly because 5k damage doesn't scale against 150 damage. Even towers fully upgraded would only do 220 against a well armored dg.

July 18, 2009 12:43:31 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

/signed

 

Very well put, both of you.  The only suggestion to this is to make it an option in game.  The reason is a LOT of the elite players like quick 2v2 matches, so they would most likely not apprectiate their game being slowed down even more because towers are too strong (even though it would allow more DG strategy since seige DG's would be welcomed).  Other than that, great idea!

July 18, 2009 12:57:06 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I always thought having towers become easy to take down, or having their damage become of less consequence, was intended.  The real control of how long a match lasts is how powerful the towers are in terms of damage and health.

Making the damage % based heavily favors damage-based builds, since for the most part they will perform far better than a tank-build DG when trying to down a tower.  Even if tank builds are currently a little better, this kind of change will be a massive tilting of the scales.

If you want stronger towers, there are those settings in the game options.

July 18, 2009 1:59:29 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I have to disagree here Alvaro. The Towers serve as a flood-gate control for the early game - their purpose is to make sure you can't storm the Enemy citadel from the get-go. You need to work up to it, by working your Lane and powering up your Demigod. Changing the damage to Percentage based would remove this control from being early game exclusive. It would also slow down the game's momentum quite a bit, and reward players who turtle and camp near their Towers. Further more, this would also add fuel to the HP-Stacking-fire that we're already seeing and further reduce the benefits of Non-HP-Granting items. If you feel Towers aren't doing enough damage, change the Tower damage to High in the Custom Game settings.

July 18, 2009 2:13:40 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting ZehDon,
I have to disagree here Alvaro. The Towers serve as a flood-gate control for the early game - their purpose is to make sure you can't storm the Enemy citadel from the get-go. You need to work up to it, by working your Lane and powering up your Demigod. Changing the damage to Percentage based would remove this control from being early game exclusive. It would also slow down the game's momentum quite a bit, and reward players who turtle and camp near their Towers. Further more, this would also add fuel to the HP-Stacking-fire that we're already seeing and further reduce the benefits of Non-HP-Granting items. If you feel Towers aren't doing enough damage, change the Tower damage to High in the Custom Game settings.

Tower damage increase in the settings does not solve the problem. The problem is that when players stack HP, which they ALWAYS do towers become ignorable to the point that you can be chased all the way to your citadel and killed. This takes away from the game immensely. Making towers a more prominent part of the game would allow players to more strategically defend and attack bases to create oppenings to the opponents citadel. Creep upgrades would still be important. Overall the game play will become better, as each team will have to use more strategy to obtain victory, rather than I have 2x you HP and will just chase you accross the map.

Again, tower power on high doesn't fix this, because at about the same point in the game, DG just start to ignore towers just the same as when tower power is normal. % based damage fixes this. Many games before DG have implemented % based damage skills as a way to balance play. It is a normal concept and I believe is heavily missing out of DG, aside from % based healing from monks. Which as a side note, is increadibly game breaking atm.

July 18, 2009 2:18:38 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I agree with your thesis, not with your solution. In early-early game towers are deadly, however after the second trip to home with a few levels under his belt a DG can take down a tower(although its not always safe) with some effort. The problem comes with groups, when there are two DG's attacking a tower its down in less than 30 secs, not enough for the tower to even hurt one of them enough. I don't know what a fix should be, but siege DG's should be buffed, thats for sure.

July 18, 2009 2:22:34 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting lifekatana,
I agree with your thesis, not with your solution. In early-early game towers are deadly, however after the second trip to home with a few levels under his belt a DG can take down a tower(although its not always safe) with some effort. The problem comes with groups, when there are two DG's attacking a tower its down in less than 30 secs, not enough for the tower to even hurt one of them enough. I don't know what a fix should be, but siege DG's should be buffed, thats for sure.

I'm tending to believe that tower effectiveness has lots of reasoning to become deminished. Like you said the solution is difficulty to develop. Answers can include, reducing effectiveness of monks and there healing. Increasing the damage to mana ratio of assassin skills, decreasing the effectiveness of HP items, and possible making DPS items more powerful. These 'problems' as I see them in game, are what leads to towers becoming useless past level 5. Many 'elite' players will disagree because they just want to stomp more, but in reality it's not fun playing a game where once your behind even a little bit, you loose all safety an the ability to defend yourself using your base as a means of defense.

July 18, 2009 2:28:42 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

You need to be careful with to what you give percentage based stats to. Damage dealt as a percent is very powerful in online games. Usually, these types of Damaging abilities are restricted to low percentages - such as 5% or 10% - to ensure that the ability would be used as either an opener or a finisher.

Enabling Towers to deal percentage based damage would preserve the early game play style through out - yes, this would make players more careful and provide adequete defense to enable players to retreat into their base safely. However, it wouldn't promote a better overall strategy - it would just reinforce the current ones people have; namely, stacking HP as best as possible - although with this change this would become a requirement rather than an option. The Citadel upgrades for Towers would also need to be re-thought. If it's percentage based, then they need to increase the percent of damage they do per upgrade. However, if the towers don't do a high enough amount of inital damage then the early game becomes the best time to attack the towers, and if they do too much than the upgrades create an imbalance - however not allowing the upgrades to do enough of an upgrade, the those Citadel purchases become useless. It's not as easy as it sounds, and I although I can see your point, I don't think this is the best way to achieve it. Tower's weren't intended to scale. If you want them to scale, you need to spend the money at your Citadel and upgrade them to counter HP stacking Demigods.

July 18, 2009 2:42:40 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

This is just an indirect complaint about HP stacking.  Moving on.

July 18, 2009 2:57:40 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting ZehDon,
You need to be careful with to what you give percentage based stats to. Damage dealt as a percent is very powerful in online games. Usually, these types of Damaging abilities are restricted to low percentages - such as 5% or 10% - to ensure that the ability would be used as either an opener or a finisher.

Enabling Towers to deal percentage based damage would preserve the early game play style through out - yes, this would make players more careful and provide adequete defense to enable players to retreat into their base safely. However, it wouldn't promote a better overall strategy - it would just reinforce the current ones people have; namely, stacking HP as best as possible - although with this change this would become a requirement rather than an option. The Citadel upgrades for Towers would also need to be re-thought. If it's percentage based, then they need to increase the percent of damage they do per upgrade. However, if the towers don't do a high enough amount of inital damage then the early game becomes the best time to attack the towers, and if they do too much than the upgrades create an imbalance - however not allowing the upgrades to do enough of an upgrade, the those Citadel purchases become useless. It's not as easy as it sounds, and I although I can see your point, I don't think this is the best way to achieve it. Tower's weren't intended to scale. If you want them to scale, you need to spend the money at your Citadel and upgrade them to counter HP stacking Demigods.

I don't understand how your logic about % based is so off. 10% means 10 hits from a tower. Since its mitigatable, when you have good armor with items, it takes twice as many to get you to 0 health. It wouldn't make it mandatory to stack HP items anymore than the current system does, all it would do is make it so the difference between 2 teams and there ability to take down towers / walk into another persons base is never more than double the effectiveness of the opposing team. Thats the beauty of % based abilities. As far as tower upgrades and all that... Not only are they useless, but most of the cit upgrades in the game are useless. To win games its currency 1, priest, angels catas giants before your opponent then push with giants and control flags till they loose. This would still work against % based towers, since the % based damage is only against DG, not grunts. Essentially the only element of the game that would change is towers would never become innefective, and you have to work as a team to create holes in your opposing teams defenses to get to there citadel.

July 18, 2009 4:24:41 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Primal Zed,
I always thought having towers become easy to take down, or having their damage become of less consequence, was intended.  The real control of how long a match lasts is how powerful the towers are in terms of damage and health.

Making the damage % based heavily favors damage-based builds, since for the most part they will perform far better than a tank-build DG when trying to down a tower.  Even if tank builds are currently a little better, this kind of change will be a massive tilting of the scales.

If you want stronger towers, there are those settings in the game options.

But the current mode ONLY SUPPORTS health stacking. Health stacking for demigod on demigod and health stacking for demigod on tower. This at least makes it so variety is needed. If you can't effectively change your build so it's less health oriented and give it that extra damage theres a problem with your playstyle that or you're playing an inflexible build.

And this damage % is mitagatable. So if a regulus has 1 attack speed and 500 attack but only 3k health and 25% armor he isn't going to last as long as lets say an oak with 1 attack speed and only 300 attack but with 4k health and 45% armor. It doesn't favor the damage builds it makes them more viable. Instead of a health stacking only game now it gives a little more option.

The game isn't only health stacking but i find myself doing it on any build because it is required to compete.

July 18, 2009 7:59:31 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

/no sign

 

I do think that the tower upgrades from the Citadel could use a bit of improvement though.

July 18, 2009 10:29:27 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

This wouldn't emphasize damage builds over health builds at all. Sure, you do more damage per shot, but at 10% damage (Any less, and they'd just be laughable), you're only going to get a few shots off before you have to retreat lest an enemy DG appears.

To win games its currency 1, priest, angels catas giants before your opponent then push with giants and control flags till they loose.
And how is making creeps the best way to take down towers going to change this?

All I really see this doing is making Regulus and his ranged abilities by far the best DG choice for towers, and making Sedna useless against them. Oh yeah, and making Catas and Giants even more important than they are now.

 

July 18, 2009 10:32:28 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting alvaro202,
I don't understand how your logic about % based is so off. 10% means 10 hits from a tower. Since its mitigatable, when you have good armor with items, it takes twice as many to get you to 0 health. It wouldn't make it mandatory to stack HP items anymore than the current system does, all it would do is make it so the difference between 2 teams and there ability to take down towers / walk into another persons base is never more than double the effectiveness of the opposing team. Thats the beauty of % based abilities. As far as tower upgrades and all that... Not only are they useless, but most of the cit upgrades in the game are useless. To win games its currency 1, priest, angels catas giants before your opponent then push with giants and control flags till they loose. This would still work against % based towers, since the % based damage is only against DG, not grunts. Essentially the only element of the game that would change is towers would never become innefective, and you have to work as a team to create holes in your opposing teams defenses to get to there citadel.

I don't believe percentage based damage would have the impact you believe it would. The entire concept reaks of something that would slow down the game even further. I can see literally no benefit to this that doesn't already exist through upgrading your Towers at your Citadel. Your 'solution' would actually allow Demigods to be less defensive, so I don't see where the additional strategy is coming from; players would HP stack more, traverse the Map taking down Towers in groups as early as possible - exactly the same thing that happens now.

Quoting TDude,
This is just an indirect complaint about HP stacking.  Moving on.

Unfortunately, I tend to agree.

July 18, 2009 11:07:34 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Towers need a significant boost during late game.

The way you can chase someone into their base, finish them off, then walk away pretty much unscathed is complete BS.

July 18, 2009 11:19:26 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Enraged_Camel,
Towers need a significant boost during late game.

The way you can chase someone into their base, finish them off, then walk away pretty much unscathed is complete BS.

This

Exatly This

Solve it how you will, % based damage from towers is the easiest solution.

July 18, 2009 11:24:25 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Solve it how you will, % based damage from towers is the easiest solution.
Except there is already an in-game solution! The citadel upgrades.

The little problem with that is that they suck past the first couple of levels.

You want to 'fix' something by introducing a balancing nightmare.

 

July 19, 2009 12:31:56 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

You want to 'fix' something by introducing a balancing nightmare.

My thoughts.  I don't think HP stacking over other things is ok right now, but this kind of change to towers is far more significant than you seem to think it is.

July 19, 2009 12:41:39 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Towers need a significant boost during late game.

no they dont, your skills do.

there is nothing wrong with towers in this game.

July 19, 2009 5:56:56 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Daikaze,
/no sign

 

I do think that the tower upgrades from the Citadel could use a bit of improvement though.

I agree, tower upgrades needs to be (just a bit) better at the higher levels. No other great changes needs to be done

July 19, 2009 11:59:27 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

good idea, like it wery much, or towers stronger at higher levels, they ar just to weak

July 19, 2009 2:09:37 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

What if the towers scaled up in HP and damage with war rank? Keep the same citi upgrades, but with a higher base for the towers, those upgrades might actually become useful.....

July 19, 2009 3:19:58 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting dangerboyrpg,
What if the towers scaled up in HP and damage with war rank? Keep the same citi upgrades, but with a higher base for the towers, those upgrades might actually become useful.....

Scaling base defenses with warrank, while already implemented, would just further increase the problem that towers and team deficiencies presents to the casual gamer. When 2 teams are matched evenly, there is no discrepency. But when 1 team is slightly more advanced than the opposition, everything scales against them in what would seem an exponential curve, and as time increases, there ability to recover significantly becomes worse. Another function that increases this curve is uneeded.

The biggest concern I have, is the loosing team (if it be by kills, warrank, skill whatever) becomes so strong by level 10 that your own base defenses become ignorable. In a 1v1 encounter, you can literally be at the front of your base and then chased through a series of towers and be killed. People say this is player skill, they don't really understand it's just bad itemization and game dynamics. Being at your towers is an advantage that should not diminish even late into the game. They are your giant citadels defensive network, and if you as a solo DG is standing with one, it should be a no go for the opposing DG to undertake you with a tower firing upon them. The current game settings allow this to happen within 10 minutes of game play.

Most games are determined within the first 5 minutes of play. The next 10 minutes clearly defines who will loose, and the first to giants can basically say GG. Making tower defense more buff as WR increases will not help make the game more dynamic, just increase the odds of winning from an early game domination even greater than ever before.

July 19, 2009 3:25:25 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

If they can kill you in the middle of your own towers even at level 10, you're doing something wrong. Sure, the outer tower isn't going to be a problem any more, but the set of inner towers grouped together means they shouldn't be able to waltz right up to you and kill you.

 

July 19, 2009 3:27:30 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

What if the towers scaled up in HP and damage with war rank? Keep the same citi upgrades, but with a higher base for the towers, those upgrades might actually become useful.....

In light of Alvaro's response (which I for the most part agree with), what about the inverse?  Light team's towers' HP and damage increase depending on the Dark team's War Rank?

Ostensibly, that doesn't make sense, but remember that:

1) Dark Team has access to higher Citadel upgrades such as tower-killing creep

2) having a higher War Rank has a strong correlation with doing better in level or gold as well

Alvaro: it's spelled "lose."  One 'o'.  "Loose" doesn't describe the team that isn't winning, it describes your mom.  (*rimshot*)

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