[SC2] Mines and Magic

[Zolden]

Mines and Magic

Here we can discuss the game, mostly suggest balance changes to weaken imba strategies.

If someone is new to the game, he could watch a random gameplay video I found at youtube.

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Zapaříme CZ - Diessel a SynchR - Starcraft 2 - Mines ...

[HunterRipVan]

Zolden,

Long time no see you on SC2.

Well I shall get to the point on Balance issues for you. For starters this is what is occurring quite frequently now.


"The Issue" End game Players vs Players.

It is most noticeable that players come end game are getting Tie more often then not Due to the Overpowered Mine Guard.
I noticed your most recent update to the game of increase Gold cost to the MG concerning Multi, and Rate of fire.
This Increase in Gold will not help the balance issue. Gold is not the issue when we hit late waves in Mines and Magic.
The Gold increase can be overcome after a few games to allocate the new amount needed.

My recommendation in all honesty is that the MG speed rate not Stack with the TURBO.
The turbo from 2 players with max dmg, multi and rate of fire in end game; can tie vs more units then I care to say.
I mean don't get me wrong ties happen, but seeing 10 ties in a row in under a week is a bit frustrating. Especially when the games last almost 1hr 30min on Average.
Yes I know I have no life to be playing a game that much, but again I don't play this as often as I used to.

Mind you there are a ton of other game balance issues that need to be written out but I'll address those one at a time.
Also it's good to see your still around to edit this game. I can list over 20 players who would honestly be sad if we couldn't continue such a great game.
Oh and one thing everyone keeps asking for, New Builder Races please ^_^.
I mean hell a few of us were working on make something similar to your game since you were gone so long but now i think that idea is scraped since your back.

Welcome back Zolden

[Zolden]

Thanks! So, both Mine Guard and Turbo are op, and when they stack, the base is unbeatable?

I'll try to nerf both a little bit to still keep it strong against normal leaks.

And yea, I had to make a pause, becuase working on one game for so many time makes me hate that game :)

So, I switched to mobile games, and now finally miss sc2 mapmaking again, so can work on MnM again. And it was a pleasure to know that map is still played frequently. So, as soon as it's perfectly balanced, and all issues are fixed, I could think about new builder.

I have a question. Does Necro builder still feel op?

And one more thing:

You said that some trying to recreate MnM? It's actually a great thing. Because games must evolve. Just look at this branch: Legion TD -> Squadron TD -> MnM -> something else. So, if someone seriously started creating a new map inspired by this genre, it would be interesting, so maybe let they keep doing it.

[HunterRipVan]

It's nice to see you replying like the old days.

The Mine Guard and Turbo do make the Base Literally to OP when it stacks.
Thank you for replying to this issue that has plagued so many for so long now.

Also I don't blame you for switching to Mobile games. I been debating on working on Android for a while now but just haven't had the time for that.
It is nice to see you back in the SC2 Map Making again. I will start with more balance issues for you as well.

Now to first answer your question about Necro Builder; YES it does still feel a little OP. I'll go in depth to explain my personal experience with it.
The Flesh Beasts are just right in my opinion. They aren't meant to last very long and are pretty useless after wave 9, So researching something new for a Meat Shield is a must.
The Skeletal Serpent is a nice unit to use early on as well, and can solo pretty much the first three waves. Which helps the player eco. In m opinion the HP you subtracted from it is nice.
To go more In depth on the Skeletal Serpent, The Upgrade of it isn't really worth the cost. It tends to die rather quickly when compared to other Front Line AKA Tank Units.
This is even considering it eating the minor skeletons around it. It's not really an Endgame unit like Rexxar can be. Rexxar may cost more in terms of "Food" but I would honestly rather have two rows of upgraded Rexxar then a Single Row of Upgraded Skeletal Serpents. I believe the Skels should have their damage taken by certain types looked at more. Same with the Flesh Beast.

Moving on to the Last Unit of the Necro Builder, the Graunders as I like to say. Or Grader since It's not really bad but not really good. My Grade on it would be a C. I only say this because it takes allot of them to make a difference on a lane. Honestly I would rather have stalkers then a Grader. It costs less and sets me up for much better units late game since I'm upgrading Metal. Yet the issue with the Grader is that single shot rate of fire. High Elfs upgraded are a better unit in comparison then a Grader upgraded. It's a unit that in mass has potential but not worth its costs really.

Honestly Most ppl play Necro for the 1 farm and sub start. It's a better start then Mech builder which doesn't have a set metal an oil like it honestly needs. It only has 1 oil start. The Set Res on each race needs to be redone a bit. Something like this would make the Builder more Livable.

Mixed Builder: 1 farm, 1mana, 1metal, and anything else around it random
Food Builder: 2 farm, and anything else around it random
Range Builder: 2 metal, and anything else around it random
Magic Builder: 2 mana, and anything else around it random
Mecha Builder: 1 Metal, 1 Oil, and anything else around it random
Necro Builder: Same as it always is 1 Sub 1 Farm, and anything else around it random

This would make it where the player stands a chance instead of choosing a builder like Mecha and having a useless builder cause he has no metal to make units.
Either this or switch the costs a bit.

Honestly we have been bored some games and gone so far as to make masses of all types of units to see how they do against waves. It's gotten us some interesting results a few times.
Talk to Coolhandsluke, hes in the clan Mortis. He can give you much more insight into this then me.

Also allot of us who write board games have been wondering why you only made T1-3 for each builder and not a T4 end game type unit for each?

Anyway I'll add more balance issues on my next reply to you.

[Zolden]

Actually, I don't remember what affected my design decisions about the T1-3 units only. Probably wanted to try something new relatively to Squad TD's constant builder coice, and make players rely on researchable units.

About the start resources I'd rather keep it as it was. Becasue I like how sometimes random generator trolls the player by not giving him the desired minerals :)

When I was balancing it at winter, I thought about giving some race specific guaranteed resources, but each decision looked too imba, so I l;eft it as it is. But we'll see, i'll play the game more to refreshen how it feels.

[Penaldo]

Oh hai, good to see that you have balanced the mine guard!!

I am not an expert or anything but what I have noticed is that the mines can be "shared". That means that two players(don't know if more o_O) who take a mine- or farm- at the same game time (second) can have the same resource. I doubt that it was an intended strategy, besides it favors people who come in parties with certain "comps" to ensure a resource (e.g. sharing the oil from mech)

An idea I had not long ago to "fix" the "eco" players=(who, after certain wave, sell all towers and just upgrade mines, expo etc. Relying solely on the MG), was to link the MG efficiency/strength to the standing army. I mean, that if according to whether you have an army or not your MG is stronger or weaker. Therefore by selling all your army, you will lose power in your MG. How exactly to set it up? I dunno, it's just an idea :).

About potential further development of the game, maybe to add a building for upgrades to all your army, in a similar way that the reward increase haste/armor/dmg, but instead to allow to "evolve" your army towards one feature. This, by investing (or dumping :p) resource combinations into it(upgrade, level up).

Also a repositioning capability for your standing army (for a gold fee or a limited number of full rearrangements) would be appreciated.

Nice game! keep it going!!

[Zolden]

Shared mines problem is sc2 engine's issue. It's done with nothing but building extractor on vespene mechanics. I don't know why it let people create more than one mine. I'd ask blizz to fix it, but they don't care anymore, no responds on feedback forums. Looks like they only care about Storm release and Void campaign ;/

I could recreate it with self-made system, but it would take some efforts, also woudln't be as convenient. So, I decided to do nothing about.

Linking MG strength to the number of kills or recent kills is an interesting idea, but feels a bit artificial. I'll think how to make acoing harder. Probably will try to slightly increase waves strength. Or something else. But if there's no "natural" ways, I'll try workarounds, like what you suggested.

Repositioning is a good thing, I wanted to implement it, but thought selling will be enough. Maybe I'll do it.

[HunterRipVan]

The ECOING issue that ppl complain about is not really an issue. Not everyone can do it to the extent of ppl who have been playing it from the start of this games creation.

Example being Longterm. He can get his Eco to 300income/300Res. Yet he doesn't just rely on Mine Guard. He builds strategically.

Making Ecoing harder requires waves to be beefed up and like allot of seasoned players are asking, More waves. Or difficulty settings for lanes?

Difficulty settings for lanes would also have to yield a better income for the enhanced difficulty or something. I mean one cannot just increase the difficulty for no bonus.

[Zolden]

Hunter:

I'm trying now to fix the frequent Tie issue, which also may fix the eco style. Not make it impossible, just make it a bit less safe.

All:

My second concern would be to nerf/buff some researchable units, so I'd like to know any ideas about what units are too good for their price and what are too weak. I spent lots of time doing this before, but still feels like it's not perfectly balanced.

[Nishiyamo]

Hey Zolden!

As promised, I give you my opinion on balance issues.

• It has already been discussed, but it is nevertheless a huge problem for this game: The eco build. Since it opens up a different approach to playing this map, and a good game always involves the creativity and strategical thinking of its players, I too wouldn't recommend to make this build unplayable. It is, however, used by many as a mean to force at least a draw. I have two ways in mind to fix this: (1) Either set the maximum speed of mine guards from 0.8 to 1 and reduce the maximum range by 1, or (2) make the different upgrade-levels available after a certain wave (for example: the upgrade for mine guard attack speed from 1 to 0.8 can only be researched after wave 35). Both ways would definitely render the mine guard eco playstyle viable but significantly less strong.
  
• The glass ling wave needs its randomization to be fixed, that is because sometimes approximately 60 lings spawn and give 1 gold each, and sometimes only 30 spawn and give 1 gold each, then again 25 spawn and give 2 gold each, so the amount of gold you get in this wave ranges from 20 to 60 or more gold, which is too huge a variance in my opinion.
• Upped arcs are way too strong. Not only do they function as tanks, but they also do extremely high damage AND have the best aura in the game. IMO as they are mana-based (damage-based), they should remain strong, but their hp should be reduced at least by 25% and their armor by 1. Otherwise, just massing arcs is enough to decide a final fight.
• Concerning the costs of units, I think there should be a way to build good tanking units without subdolak. The thing is, if you don't have sub, you necessarily have to stay with angels/rexxars/tanks, which increases the difficulty to stay alive by a significant degree. This would be possible with an additional upgrade for rexxars (rexxar tier 2 for example), which is available for all resources except subdolak. The level-2 rexxar should be an equally good tank like the anubis, but with a different ability maybe. This way, the issue is fixed where you can get owned by the randomization of the map.
• There seems to be an issue with the randomization of mines when the map is generated. Sometimes, you find like 10 mines of the same kind at one side, and 10 mines of another kind at the other. This happens fairly frequently. Players have then like 3 crystals each and no mana. I don't know the way this randomization works for this map, but it definitely needs some revising.

Some other ideas I have in mind:

• How about adding bonus waves from time to time (some extremely sturdy units), which grant random resources or gold when killed, but don't hurt the base when let through. This would be not only interesting, but also a good measure to prevent people from selling their towers at all.
• What could actually be interesting too would be the possibility to deactivate your mine guard for the entire game to gain a package of resources at random (like 30 resources, the player doesn't know the composition however). It'd be a gamble, which potentially leads to greater risks because your mine guard is deactivated, but maybe you get some important resources that you can't find on the map.

That's it for now, think carefully about what you do. Also, changes like mine guard attack speed from 0.75 to 0.80 don't have any effect, a drastical change is necessary in this regard (see above).

At least, make it impossible to play this game without building towers. When I have other things in mind, I'm going to post them here.

[Danny Borgstrom]

Hi Zolden,

Glad to see you active on MnM again.  I enjoy the game so much it inspired me to create one but your absence gave me pause.  I saw your switch to Unity3D and am considering it as a starting point now.  Can you describe some of the limitations you found with Galaxy that caused you to switch?

I'm not fond of creating property that Blizzard will own. That's my #1 reservation.

I lack the 2D/3D graphic skills you demonstrate so well.  Is that where you started?

I'm looking forward to some of you indie dev insights and looking forward to your next project.

Sincerely,

Dan

 

[Arschterix]

When I send units, say 3 hydras they are spread among the opponents lanes ... Would it be possible to keep together sends from each player? You know, at times I'm inspired and send a sort of "mini army" like: queen, lurker, roach, but they get split . :s.

I've noticed that if players of your team leave the game, the opponents like to make "mass sends" to kill you off. I wonder: Are they scaled down? Because in extreme cases, I've ended up alone vs 4 players and doesn't feel like the sends were scaled down (in HP/dmg). Perhaps the remaining mine guard should do more damage(in general or only to sends) to prevent this?

thanx!

[Zolden]

Thanks, guys, for ideas. I just released a new patch, where tried to fight further the noted issues.

I can't make 25% changes as been suggested, cause it changes the balance too much. I'm trying to make smal changes inside 1-3% range. ANd then test stuff. And then iterate more in that direction if needed.

First, I nerfed damage/fire rate of the base. Also raised some base upgrade prices. Especially high tiers of fire rate and number of attacks, cause they realy buff the base greatly. But in the same time I increased hp/shield bonus of the base. It shouldn't help against last wave united armies battles, but will help against normal leaks.

So, I hope eco play will now be harder to go with. And also, there will be less chance of a draw.

Other changes are about units balance. You can check the update notes in the map patch notes.

[Zolden]

Galaxy is not object oriented language, it limits me, spamming function is so out of style I got used to. C# that is used in Unity is just perfect.

Also, working with data ditor is boring, too much routine. Coding things is much faster and funnier. There's also shittons of useful API stuff, completely acceptable physics (unlike that non-gameplay that sc2 has). Also, no latency for arcade games, it makes impossible to create such games in sc2. Also, lots of freedom in project architecture. And lots of stuff I can't remember. It was a huge pleasure to move to Unity.

2D/3D skills are gainable, also Unity has Asset Store, where you can download much more free assets than you have in editor.

Try these lessons (beginner ones first)

http://www.unity3dstudent.com/category/modules/

I started with them, and it helped to udnerstand, how the whole thing works, and then I simply had to find API functions for what I need, it became very easy. Unity is comprehensively documented, has questions and forum sections in their site, also irc channel for questions. So, just start, it will go smooth (assuming you know C++ or C#)

[Zolden]

Keeping sends together is an interesting idea, but I'm afraid, this may be hard to handle for players you plan to send your "mini armies". But, there's still a possibility to talk your team to focus sends. Even though units will still spread randomly.

As far as I remember, sends are not being scled for uneven teams situations. But it feels like somehow people are able to handle even 1v4 situations. I'll add your idea in my list and consider it later if I notice, that 1v4 is indeed hard to play cause of sends.

Mine guard is not being scaled, and adding some "smaller team" bonus sounds pretty reasonable. Though, I'm afraid, that it may increase draw chances, cause one upped base defender is a very strong thing that can destroy armies. I'll think about it.

[Danny Borgstrom]

Thanks for the tips & link. I'm an old school C programmer, before object but I'm learning. 

[Bauke Folkertsma]

Hi Zolden,

I do not have much to say but it is good to see the developer still being around for this game. Im sure after the updates a lot of avid mines and magic players will enjoy finding new ways to play the game the best they can.

I see the idea of changing the RNG on resources get suggested quite often but in my opinion..

I like the resources as random as it is now. It makes every game different and challenging and certainly not impossible. 

With about 450~ games played I still feel like can learn new strategies. That's a good thing, so good job man. 

Any idea's for a crystal based builder :D?

-bakkaling

[ChubbyCharmer]

So we are all glad that you are in fact not dead as the rumor was. This makes us happy

now on to the game. wave 6 is imbalanced when you get both large acid lings and large robolings. magic even with an upped mercyless and a faceless will leak this wave everytime. in fact most leak it outside of necro and combined. add a little send to this wave and it will even take out the security system/nexus. it is the new wave 5 when everyone used to send marines now doing this on 6 is pretty op if you get the huge lings together. granted its not a guarantee you are going to get huge lings but maybe making it not allow huge robos if there are already huge acids might balance this some. having to use all turbos at wave 6 just to not lose should show how imbalanced this makes it, 

the idea that you allow this game to "Troll" people makes it less about skill and all about luck which mean balancing is impossible. take out some of that troll and you might actually be able to balance it. make sure that every race at least gets what it needs to make what it is.like combined for instance. needs to at least get 1 metal 1 food 1 mana. magic builder should auto start with 2 mana .not just 1.  melee should auto start with 2 food not just 1. as well as for the rest of the races.

Add a tier 4 and 5 unit to all races. i get the idea of wanting people to tech into the tech races but as it sits now if you don't get sub or cry or oil your pretty much fucked. when it comes to dragon you will leak for sure. even congies are fucked to the AOE damage of the dragon. this once again is in the luck spectrum not skill. i realize you don't want to make a remake of squad but you already have a game so far from squad it would be near impossible to copy it at this point.

as an idea  maybe add the first 2 tech units to the respective builder. so melee would get both rexxars and beholders mech would get butter flys and that basic tank unit that i cant remember the name of. ranged would get marines and stalkers an so on and so on. this would mean that you have to add another tech race for necro and but i think the change would things

i guess im just sad of seeing marines and beholders and all other teir 1 tech units being so worthless and not used. at this point i doubt 1 person would bitch if you just pulled them from the game cause all they are are useless. the HT is good for a little bit but its always sold before end game. cause from wave 20 on its worthless. 

now onto my bitchy whiny section

ever since you did that first of the newest patches i have been having issues in the game. they are as follows

1) in game lag. i was a networking tier 3 for xbox so i have thoroughly checked my connection and its clean and i dont get this lag in even more demanding games such as DS hots or Special forces elite 5

2) game dropping both team. this isnt happening every game but around wave 7-15 i have had this happen. 

this is all 

thanks for the game been playing since alpha 

[Zolden]

Nice report, ChubbyCharmer, thanks.

The recent updates concurred with blizzard doing something to battlenet servers, pathing some stuff, releasing that new launcher thing. They probably preparing it for massive Heroes of the Strom public beta. So, I think issues you facing are related to that activity. And I haven't noticed any of that.

The tricks with moving/adding units is a not high priority concern, I'd rather add a new race, and then think of better way to for the builders and their units. While the tier 1 tech units is something I will think about and will do something about them to make them more usesful.

And about those resource distribution changes I'm still certain. I fucking like how it works now. And the example you brought, when Combines builder need 1 food, 1 mana and 1 metal isn't convincing. Some would prefer 3 mana or 3 metal or 3 food, instead of 1 of each. You understand what I mean? But in the same time, I understand that this is rather a weakness of the game, and if I ever have an idea about it, I'll do something clever, not the guarantee of resources, but something not so flat and obvious and randomness ruining.

And the 6 wave problame wil be fixed in the recent patch.

[Heckubus]

Hey Zolden,

Thank for making this game. I thoroughly enjoy it.  I have a few comments of the top of my head.

1. For single player games... it would be nice to have a 5 second delay between waves. During normal multi-player, you usually have enough time to spend gold from kills before the next wave starts. However, in single-player it goes too fast and you miss the investment opportunity.
2. On several occasions, I've been been put on a team where someone goes into full troll mode and/or sabotages the team somehow. This includes going AFK and never building a tower, intentionally expanding into your base and stealing all the mines early on, and lasering your almost dead kills and stealing the gold from you. Can you think of a way for trolls to be booted? Perhaps a majority vote? Or automatically kicking if certain behavior is seen? The stealing of your base mines is particular painful and wrecks your econ for the entire game. If you can't kick them, perhaps delete all their buildings/mines and put them into an actionless mode?
3. On occasion, I've played a map were there was not an available mana mine anywhere in my expo area (about 4 construction yards worth of area). I would encourage you to try playing to the end and seeing if you can make it without mana. Its extremely difficult, because mana is used for a lot of things. Sends, high end units, blasting rocks, mineguard upgrades, etc.  I'm not sure what you can do about this, but perhaps beside placing a guaranteed mana mine somewhere along the expo path. If the content of a rock is not determined until it is blasted open, perhaps the simple check would be make it into a mana mine if the player does not have a mana mine, they have 2 or more construction yards, have 10 or more existing mines, and perhaps after wave 20 or something. These numbers are examples only.
   
4. I don't think you should ever try fixing the sharing of mines. I find it very engaging/challenging and is definitely an opportunity to be a team player. It does take a bit effort to time it right, and I view it as another benefit that comes with experience.

Thank you,
Heck

[Zolden]

Thanks for feedback, Heckubus.

I've added your 1 point to the list. Guess, some would be rather bored about how slow singleplayer goes. So, it would rather be reasonable to have a kind of slider to change turn duration. But it's something I'm a bit lazy to create, will do later maybe.

I can't say I ever saw the trolls you described, even though played alot of games on EU and NA servers. Probably, it's a too rare episode to care about. But, I have intention to implement autokick afk player mechanism.

The "no mana mines" situation is a torture indeed. And for now I'm thinking to make every const yard generate +1 mana. Cause adding guaranteed mines contradicts to the core idea of the game: mines are random.

About sharing mines. I don't have plans to fix it. Only blizzard can do it to their hard-coded mechanics, but I don't think they will.

[Noname]

Hi Zolden, thanks for your amazing map. Could you please fix mine locations, so they dont spawn too close to the map edge? A bit annoying :)

[Arschterix]

and while you are at it, please also fix construction yards blocking mines ;D. It happens even when you build it while it is in the rock ....

[Zolden]

Yeah, guys, these are good points. Should have been fixed these issues long time ago, first reports appeared almost a year ago, dunno why a waited so long.

I found the solution, just need to create a new placement model as the green placement tiles won't be visible anymore. So, maybe tomorrow update will fix those things.

[Philipp Rosjat]

Why you increased the costs of mines and const yard?
Now you can only concentrate on 1 tech tree, cause you have no minerals for more.

[Nishiyamo]

I too think that the gold costs of mines and constr. yards are too high right now (esp. mines!). The game profited from the flexibility of players researching new units, but now it got hard to mix up several tech trees simultaneously.

People with gold mines at start will have a HUGE advantage now. You might want to reconsider this change.

[Zolden]

Glad you react to the changes, guys, you're my only hope to finally balance the game.

The mine/yard cost changes aren't big, and they don't affect first few instances. This measure is an attempt to slightly weaken the eco strategy, which feels a bit op (correct me if I'm wrong). So, one would pay not a penny more for first two or three const yards and first five mines. And about 2-3 gold more for each next instance. Not that much, I suppose.

Especially if you take into account, that the sends you kill will now bring more gold. For example, killed marine give you +4. The stronger sends you kill - the more gold you recieve. So, this may be a good compensation for the slightly bigger gold prices. And only ecoers would suffer from higher prices. It doesn't fix the ecoing problem completely, just make a little bit more problematic their habit to rush into the center, and steal resources. So, after all it should leave more available resource nodes for not ecoing people to pursue different tech trees.

This is what I think will happen, but I may be mistaken, so I want you to tell me what do you think about those recent changes again, but after at least 5 games played with these new rules. I can fix these changes back, but only if the statistical reality will confirm the first impression your just shared.

[Noname]

I kind of like the change, makes sell/eco strats even less viable. If your eco is good, 150 gold income until wave 25, you can still get units from 3 tech trees.

[Philipp Rosjat]

Thats not correct. I had about 200 gold income. 7 food and 7 metal income with each 3 mines. 135 mana, 21 sub, 11 crys, 11 oil. i had no chance to increase metal or food income because of money problems. And I had the luck of 2 gold mines. I didnt realized that i get more income from sends. Maybe because our Oppenents didnt sent much.

I think the eco problem is more than solved. All guys i saw in the last games who gone eco lost against my Team. Except you have a very good Team which can handle his wave. The mineguard cant handle hard waves anymore that eco guys need strong teammates but the eco build is in any case no more that strong

Especially the mine cost is a big problem in my eyes. And 4 gold for each mine is not a slight change :D

[CaptainPanic]

A minor issue: We can't see our researched towers during a wave.

Sometimes during waves, I would like to be able to see my researched towers for information like resource costs as it would help me plan ahead (i.e. will I have enough crystal leftover to build my tower next wave if I upgrade my MG's multi-tracking now). Currently we can only see this information for our initial builder units as a wave is progressing.

[Bauke Folkertsma]

Just curious..

Is there a specific reason why the beholder jumps to only certain units? Why does it fly towards acid's lings and zealots and void rays and other.. but not the very troublesome pink hydralisk? Im not sure if I have ever managed to kill the big drone(wave9 or 10) when the enemy sends me a hydralisk. Most of the time it spawns behind the drone and it just neatly shoots away without getting any harm. I always felt that was also the big factor as to why necro seems stronger. Because the chance that you get to send pink hydralisks early on is the highest if im not mistaken.

bug:

If someone has a single Robotron upped the Immortass does buggy. It doesn't walk forward to shoot the robotron but shoots very fast around it. trying to hit the robotron's projectiles perhaps? I've seen this before happen with the huge probe wave when it is a single one. 

[RichMan]

Wassup Zolden, im a very fan of your game and been playing it since one year ago. When there wasnt necro or mech, hehe i liked to be melee!. The game is reaaaaaaaly gooda. Sorry for the english btw, im Peruvian. Im asking, if theres somehow to see who did the mine guard style or eco for he first time. Because therss so many guys on eu server that rrly piss me of when they bother me about what im doing. The changes are goooood, actually i still rolling eco but now i need a partner who cover my early wave leaks, otherwise i fukedup xD. The edge thing mine , good :D. Every change is ok. Just a curiosity, i had a game where i got good income, but starcraft delete it or something, is there somehow to have that replay again????.

GOOD LUCK!

[Joe Bieker]

Zolden, 

BlackPimple here. Good to see you back.  I donated BTW. 

1. I think mine nerf and cost up was a little over done, but like the idea.  BUT, keep in mind that since those updates, teams are sending a lot stronger to end it early.  With mine nerf / cost, this is almost impossible to stop and catch up from.  Even dumping $ into mine last min to save ourselves, doesn't help much anymore.  Please think about this to get better balance. 

2. Do you have a general ETA of new race? (We won't hold you to it but we would like to know around when)

3. When new race comes, how will this be accessed? another, new reward level? or avail to everyone? 

4. Autokick sounds really nice for AFK players.  Have you thought about vote kick? 4 players = 3 players need to vote.  3 players = 2 people need to vote.  2 players = too bad, theyre stuck w each other (or need a vote from opposite side). 

[Arschterix]

Thanks Zolden for you efforts!
The game is nicely balanced imo. Perhaps Necro is harder now, bu damn they start with secure subdolak so suck it! hehe

It is challenge now, and sending can be devastating for people overexpanding or in general over-ecoing, WELL DONE.

Regarding the new race, it would be interesting to see one. Perhaps a crystal based one? I don't know what could be their special ability, paladin/monk style self healing with some kind of synergy with meleers like angels and such? ;D.

GG

[Arschterix]

the new crystal race could shatter into smaller units when killed, ^_^

[BlackPimple]

Zolden, Got a good idea.  when you add a new race, you should also add another donation reward.  I think you should receive donation every time you add a new race, but we should also get credit for donating also.  Donation Level 2, and we get something cool.  but it has to be something as cool as a probe though.  

[Zolden]

Guys, I have a feeling that all races are already balanced, except the mech who are a bit stronger then others (cause mech players usually have higher income). Am I right?

Also, what about mine costs? Do you still think they should be decreased? Cuase after some games played I feel like it's now better. For example, early taking the missle is now more risky than it was.

CaptainPanic

Ok, I'll see what can be done. Probably it's possible to show the upgraded units during the wave.

Bauke Folkertsma

Beholders only jump on some unit types, like ranged or magical. It was its purpose. To jump over tanks and attack ranged ones. Pink Hydra is a glass kind of unit, who can be ranged or melee, so it's not targeted. Validating only weapon range was too problematic, so I kept it simple.

RichMan

Bnet has some bugs, it seems. Sometimes it doesn't show the results screen after game. ANd probably doesn't save the replay. I can't fix it, but blizz are aware of the bugs and may fix it with some patch.

BlackPimple

I don't know when I start making a new race. I want to balance the existing ones first.

And it will be available with the requirement of 4 reward points most possibly. Seems logical, 2 for mech, 3 for necro, 4 for the new one.

Yes, I have that kick afk feature in the list.

And yea, I'll think about more little things like the observers to cover higher reward levels.

Arschterix

Yes, new race will definitely be crystals based. But I have no idea waht will it be specialized on. Will have to do a brain storm. Should be something cool, original and synergic.

[аувв дактик]

мега классная игра всем качать

[nathy...@gmail.com]

hi my ingame account is Ziro, i like this game verry much, i maked somethink for all MAM fans ;D

[Bauke Folkertsma]

Awesome! I'm not sure what you mean with the builder info though. You are not guaranteed to get 2 farm with melee builder or 2 metal with ranged etc. The necro builder with 1 farm and subdolak is correct. But hey thanks dude. 

Builders seem balanced. Necro might still be the strongest for having strong units and quick expanding. however I can usually expand quickest with the magic builder wich is a big plus or with the melee builder if I get metal for marine spam. So I geuss it all comes down to what resources you get in the end. 

After about 20~ games with the latest patch the game does seem harder to play. I've been losing more. Not sure if this was the intention but yeah.. weak units with weak teammates after wave 20.. shit gets tense.. especially if you dont have the resources and gold for minegaurd upgrades. having a good team is everything if you want to win. 

I also get 1 or 2 beholders early every game If I start with farm(s). killing the strong enemy sends asap is a big deal. 

[Noname]

Nice balance patches so far, my only concern currently are uneven team balance (4vs3;2, etc).
Solution to sends could be following: sends that was suposted to get leaver still going into empty line, or some kind of % damage nerf based on how many players left your team.
Solution to final battle: some kind of damage buff?

[Roman Příhoda]

Hi, i really like your game and i have about 200 games and 1840 elo so far(lvl4). 

• I think battle tanks are little OP. You just need some oil and metal and with couple of battle tanks incoming waves becames so easy to defeat. I suggest gold cost increase.
  
• Angels seems so weak for its cost. They can be usefull but lot of players just skip them. I suggest shield buff or lower gold/resource cost. There was some shiled regen buff recently but it didnt help very much.
  
• Butterfly hardly ever survives in mid to later waves. I would like to see minor range buff.
  
• I would like to see some additional progress for lvl 4 players. I dont really know what, but maybe just somethink cosmetic and hard to get(like for reaching 1850 elo or even more). It would increase motivation to play for those players.
  
• Basic/First towers could get third upgrade. It would be expensive but later in game they are currently useless and usually sold. They have some original skills and abilities and some stronger version of them would be nice.
  
• Is sharing of resources bug or game mechanic? If game mechanic i would like to see some description or guide for newer players how to do this. It took me great amount of games till someone explained it to me and i felt really bad for "stealing" resources from teammates we both could reach.
  

btw: Is there any higher chance to get melee builder when random? Maybe it is just me but i keep getting melee builder so damn often.

Hope u will keep patching game and add some more content. Sorry for my english.

 

  

[Danny Borgstrom]

OK there's must be a way to stop the full-on Tag Team BS that's going on. Two teammates , one goes full econ, the other gets twice the income.  It's really cheesy and devastating to noobs.  The later should be most concerning.  An incremental penalty for not building a towers would solve the problem.  They can still econ but not fully.

[Zolden]

StephenHero, what server are you from?

Bnet have been being buggy these days. Some other arcade map authors having upload problems.

I remember my map lost its position, like it has never been played, and then I couldn't join the lobby too. But then it self-fixed somehow, maybe I restarted sc2 client.

Maybe I should just reupload it again, when other guys report that upload is working again.

Danny, that strat usually not that effective, I can barely remember a game o two where it worked.

Roman Příhoda, thanks for comprehensive balance feedback. Some points are fixed, some are in my list.

nathy

Lol, nice job, dude. I see you're realy into the map.

[Andy Park]

Hi, I'm also having problem joining in the game, which started to happen yesterday 11/14. When I try to join in the game, the download process would start but not finish, always being stuck around 50%. I have tried restarting the SC2 client, clearing the custom map cache, and anything else I could think of, and nothing worked. I play on the America server, and all the other custom maps work fine for me. Is there something else that I can do?

[Zolden]

I've reuploaded it, so try again, and tell me if it work.

[Zolden]

Ok, seems like the issue is still there. Other mapmakers have it too with their maps. Only on NA, though. I've reported it to bnet bug report subforum. But I'm sure blizz is aware of the issue already.

The temporal fix is to join to the map on EU server, to download the map, and then it will be joinable on NA.

[Longterm]

Hello Zolden,

Actually this strategy, of one player holding both waves and other going eco, is a pro tactic that certainly works in certain circumstances. In the inhouses that we used to play, especially 2v2 inhouse (all players 1800+ elo), we often found the best solution to be one player playing eco and the other holding both waves. This tactic makes enemy sends less relevant and is a tactic I like to use myself. Still, there are some weaknesses to this tactic so I am not sure if it really requires a nerve at this point in time. 

[Panzerfahrer 01]

Hey Zolden nice game btw. But i think melee builder is unbalanced hes super expensive if u compare his units with other 

[J Wall]

Hey Zolden,

This is UNW Reborn . I have started a Mines and Magic group and have begun to organize the community so we can host a tournament. I was thinking a promotion on the load screen with in game rewards could draw interest. If you wanted. I have casters for the better games that people may watch. It could be good for the game and I have a lot more ideas. Just let me know what level of involvement you want.

[Zolden]

Panzerfahrer 01

Ok, I'll pay some attention. Actually last time I tried it, it was easy to play. But maybe there's still a little disbalance.

J WALL

Good idea about the tournaments, I'd place info about to the loading screen. I just would like blizzard to fix that upload issue first. Cause if I place something in the loading screen, I'll have to update the map, which will make it undownloadable. Blizz reporting that they have massive bug track activity, and they feel the blood already, so, hope it will soon be fixed.

And as a reward I could add a reward point minimally, but that would also require adding in the game something, that would correspond to higher reward levels. I'll think what could it be.

2 all

I wonder, what those things for:

[William Rutzler]

Hey Zolden, I donated, Didnt get the reward. Qpid#205, How long does this take? its been a day.

[William Rutzler]

Also, I play EU and NA, Does the super cool looking stuff affect both?

[Erpel]

an observer mode, when someone wanna surrender his defence would be nice too :) even an observer mode would rock - i mean the 10+ players edition you know, with like 16 player slots. Since the afk host problem is solved it should be fine (pressing the start button befor all 16+ slot have been taken. :) nice map so far, ty!

[William Rutzler]

I lied, I got it, Thank you. 

[William Rutzler]

Whats the group and what tornaments have you put together? ive seen nothing of this.

[William Rutzler]

Yeah so I think there should be like a full out ladder for this. Stats, Gold stuff, Kills, All sorts of stuff. Would really appreciate it. Also, Alot of people care about their elos(I do) so I think there should be some way of kicking players. Maybe give people with 1850+ elos the ability to kick people with less then 50 games on their own team after wave 25 or something along them lines. I know Infestor wave Sending 5 mutas usually ends it for the newbies. 

[Bauke Folkertsma]

Anyone else think Robotrons became a little too expensive? It's pretty rare getting them in the first place and even then I'm having a hard time getting a strong lategame army. 

I usually end up with 4 robotrons and some tier 1/2 tank units be it upped fungal monsters/rexxar/upped berserkers with a few weaker ranged units I got for the first 25~waves. Not a very scary lategame army since the tanks just die at the dragon. Definitely prefer getting a mix of anubis/reapers/sun idols/holy arcs/conjurers/battletanks lately.  

I never go ECO though so not sure if that would be a must go strategy. 

[William Rutzler]

I think its balanced thou, Cause mech builder usually starts with nice eco to get there. So id say its not that big of an issue

[William Rutzler]

IVe never had this problem with robos thou, I usually have at least 1 anubis(upped) and full row of battle tanks and almost maxed row of robo with butterfly.

[Noname]

If you cant get full row of robos you must be doing something wrong. You either tech too early or your build before you tech is not well optimised so you can increase your gold income well enough.

[William Rutzler]

Zolden, We need to be able to kick new players or players that cant hold and expect the team to. So give 1850 elo players the ability to kick players with out a 75+ gold income after wave 25 or 30 at the lastest PLEASE lol

[Bauke Folkertsma]

I'm probably doing it wrong then. But would you suggest going ECO and do you do this with random people? 

I never go ECO and only play with randoms. When I go for robotrons I get around 150+ income at the end. I know its not too much but sheesh. I like to play safe and I certainly can't rely on my teammates to not leak on the deadly waves. For instance I like to have quite abit more/better units than needed for the MEIAI or STONEGOLEMS wave cause people tend to leak big time there. 

People with only 75+ income can still beat the last wave so that would not be a good reason to kick people. I'm not a fan of being able to kick in general unless the player is for 100% sure AFK. Because you know in the end.. its a game. It is completely in their right to stick around even though they will leak. I remember when I played my first games I wanted to see the last waves just to know whats up. You yourself by clicking that play button and being teamed up with randoms should be fully aware than you could possibly get a bad team. Clicking that play button was YOUR decision. Don't blame your team for not knowing how to play the game. 

AFK people however.. yeah those should be able to get kicked but I have no idea if such a mechanic exists in game where the battle.net system or whatever could possibly count the APM of a player of the last 10 minutes.. 0-5 APM? >> option to kick player. You would need to know what the average APM of every player is and what would be considered practically AFK or you know "sleeping on the job" 

  

[Noname]

Never go ECO unless you are not able to make a good build, good build will almost always beat ECO player in final battle.

Zolden please give us some balance or explain how to deal with this kind of bs...

[CaptainPanic]

Regarding kicking players:

I personally don't mind players that are new/bad at the game sticking it out to the end. Sometimes you get stuck with these players, and I take a c'est la vie attitude towards situations like these.

My problem are trolls that join to deliberately disrupt a game. I am referring to people who build yards into their teams area to purposely take their mines and ruin their games. There are others who refuse to build towers all game just to screw with their team. These are the people that need to be kicked/perma banned.

Regarding game balance:

The upgraded Battletank has a range of 4.5. The problem with this is that when there are units behind the Upgraded Battletank with a range of 5 (i.e. stalker, conjurer) these units can't actually attack ranged units, despite having a .5 longer range than the Upgraded Battletank. I believe it would be better if the Upgraded Battletank instead had a range of 4 (like its un-upgraded counterpart). This would allow units behind the Battletank with a range of 5 to be able to actually attack ranged units.

[spitfir...@yahoo.com]

After playing this game for quite a while, it's probably the best TD I've ever played. It's dynamic which makes it entertaining, games feel different each time, and it is quite difficult. I had this huge post describing the ups and downs of every race, a large section on the researched units, but I figured rather than flood you with a wall of text you probably won't read I'll just throw some suggestions.

Melee
Ogre - Remove the knockback, all it does is punch a unit away and let it live to deal more damage to you. The stun proc should also deal extra damage, give the race as a whole more damage with it's core.
Skeleton - A third tier unit upgrade should be available. After the first few waves this unit falls off so quickly it's non existant. Since they're built in the backline, they could upgrade into a skeleton archer/mage of sorts.
In general - I think it's incredibly ironic that the race dubbed as the tank/melee race has no viable melee DPS units and no viable end game tank units. Fix this by making the t3 into a proper substitute to rexxars or making it a DPS unit with a nuke and a phase shift that drops agro.

Ranged
Crack elf - upgrade should be cheaper, they're already absurdly expensive for what they do.
T2 ranged - Should have a useful passive like an attack speed slow OR the ability to focus it's shots like the stalker
T3 ranged - Higher damage and a more useful buff.

Magic
Faceless - The buffs they provide should NOT buff anything but the initial race units.

Combined
Crusader - Remove the knockback, it does nothing but save enemies from dying
Archer - Give it a useful passive, like crit

Mech
Billy - Upgrades should be make better so as to promote upgrading them, the heal should be given a cooldown.
Spiders - Shield should be cast only once without recharging energy via tank.

Necro
T2 upgrade should not be so tanky, they should have to upgrade to a tanky unit like every other race.
T3 should deal significantly more damage but attack significantly slower, this would weaken it's overall performance on mass unit waves, which is a problem because they hold so efficiently.

Research

Metal
Marine - Marines shouldn't attack everything in range, it just makes the unit useless. Marauders knock back which saves units. Why is this a recurring theme? Why do units have this ability.
Stalker - Solid midgame unit, falls off like it should, one thing I'd adjust is allowing the upgrade to walk over units like in ladder. Allow it to layer properly.
Ghost - Upgrade values are wonky. 25/25, 20/30, but not 30/20. Also they should gain extra range, to properly layer behind idols/robos instead of having to choose.
Idol - No reason for these to cost mana. No reason for a sun idol to cost 40 total to upgrade, bump it way up(25/30) and remove the mana cost.

Food
Beholder - Worthless unit, rework entirely, at the very least code it's ability to work like it's supposed to.
Rexxar - HP is too high, no idea why it was buffed. Also the upgrade structure is irritating, should be 15/30 or 16/32.
Angel - Only unit that can save not having sub for anubis, it is irritating that you have to stack both versions though. Remove their ability to stack and just make up'd angels have 180 shield aura.
Anubis - The only late game tank that is truly viable. This is a mistake, imo, something else at the very least should be capable of tanking especially since you already have it in the game(berserkers). They shouldn't cost mana though, remove the mana cost, add a crystal cost.

Magic
Templar - Useless unit. It's devastatingly good early on but falls off so quick it's disgusting. This is entirely due to not having any single target damage.
Witch - Annoying unit, remove it's ice patch, it makes it a necessity late game for no reason.
Arc - Strange unit. t1 buffs, t2 debuffs, and they have stacking auras. Another theme I don't see a reason for. In any case, I think this is the perfect unit to create dual purposes for. Arcs are really good units but serve entirely different purposes. T1 should have further range(6), since they're essentially buff-bots with alright DPS. T2 should have more hitpoints and provide a pseudo tank role, also less range than t1(3). In general arcs fall off because they have no range and just die to the aoe of later waves, giving them a solid bit of range would help with this for t1, and hp would help for t2. You could even offer a t3 upgrade that rivals an anubis, losing it's range entirely and gaining a lot more hitpoints/survivability.
Conjurer - Strange unit in a sense that upgrading it is almost never worth it. They honestly should maintain their summon ability when upgraded and gain the firestorm. Also, their range should be bumped up, perhaps to allow them to live against the last two waves more effeciently. They are, afterall, end game units.

Oil
Berserker - This unit should have a third upgrade that rivals anubis in terms of tanking. This is really key, since without anubis, you're pretty much fucked. You need options.
Butterfly - This unit is almost always relegated to being chucked in the back to buff your key units. This is entirely because of it's range, it's so low they just die to late game. Buff the range to caster level(7)
Tanks - Increase the cost a bit(15/10, 20/15), and make them have 6 range. They die to late game, where as they should be able to be as efficient as reapers can be.
Robos - Don't have a problem with this unit.

All in all, these are the changes I'd make. Not necessarily all of them. But for a TL;DR version:
-Remove all 'knockback' effects, they're detrimental instead of helpful.
-Arc/Berserker should have t3 which turns them into tanks that can rival an anubis.

[William Rutzler]

This is that shit im talking about

elmO on EU, Always does this shit, He has like 1000 games, 1500 elos. Christ, Give donators the ability to kick players like this?

[William Rutzler]

I just started a new game, With him on my side, Ill record it this time

[William Rutzler]

He left at start after I told him I was recording. Zolden, Can you instill mods perhaps?

[Bauke Folkertsma]

LOL that elmO guy is a real troll alright. I've seen him around and I pity him really.. I mean whats his point?

@spitfire:

Awesome read and I feel like you are really spot on with many things especially with the tank unit possibilities.

I'll share my thoughts on some things too because I dont really have anything better to do right now lol.  

I really like the melee builder as it is. You definately need to start thinking about your damage dealers as soon as you start the game but having only ogre's and fungal monsters as a front line can work. For a real strong army you should have your income to about +160 by the end. With 12 upped ogre's and some upped fungal monsters paired up with some holy arcs or even without you can get by the last waves no problem. With the low food that you need to spend on units you can really pump up your income quickly and focus primarly on the backline on getting good damage dealers, this kind of playstyle fits the description of the builder entirely imo. Some of my best games have been on this builder.

Ranged builder has also that unique playstyle but reversed. You need strong tanks at some point. The issue of not having a good lategame tank unit available except anubis is very true. No Anubis? You better be lucky enough(have the resources) to be able to build A LOT of rexxars/holy arcs/upped berserkers or I usually just end up with a weak army after dragon.

As ranged builder having a lot of the T3 upgraded doesn't work at all as a dps unit whereas with the melee builder having a lot of T2 and T3 do well as tanks imo. 

Crack elfs also feel so useless after wave 5. Really good for wave 1 till 4 but then it's just a tiny meatshield until you get a beholder/rexxar/berserker/holy arc. I NEVER upgrade crack elfs unless things went really wrong for some reason.  

The Necro builder is all about that T3 graderstud. so good maybe too good having it shoot slower sounds like a very good suggestion.  T1 and T2 are good for early and the morrowgar had its thing before with having conjurers but seeing as the conjurers just die from having low range at the dragon fight I dont like to ever get either of these units anymore. 

Beholder - I strongly disagree on them being worthless not sure on why you think this. Solid to have early and having one till the end to deal with enemy void rays is awesome. If it could also fly to other ranged units(pink hydralisks) would make more sense though but wouldnt always help as you want it to take out that void ray. 

Templar - Not too great I agree but man I have seen templar shots kick ass post dragon wave. Bit of a niche I agree but if you get lucky the lightning can rip through an enemy players units and set off a chain of death. For the normal waves I geuss it just does what it is suppose to do and help you get through early game if you dont have any AOE possiblities. I facepalm though If people ever get more than two of them. 

Arc/Berserker should have t3 which turns them into tanks that can rival an anubis? holy shit YES

[William Rutzler]

Can we start a thread on what beholder does target? PVE and PVP. I get beholder to target conjurs PVP, I jhonestly have no idea what else it targets. Marines PVE, uhh the Zlots wave 13. Could be wrong on wave number, Theres zlots and a conjur in back. But itd be nice to know what it targeted and if Beholder could be better, Id do stupid dances. Howevber, Beholder for end game only seems super nice with Upped high elf cause it basically turns it into a bomb PVP. 

Also for suggestions, What about an upgrade that lets you sell things for full price at the mine? like Up it once to get 75% of the stuff back, Then up it again to get 100%?

[CrazyCalvin]

Hi,

Can we get a change on how player drops are handled? Right now, the dropped players loses all his units and buildings immediately at drop, but the wave units remain (if he dropped mid-wave). I think it would be more fair to keep the players units to fight off the wave, and then remove them afterwards. Lost a game the other day when a player dropped at the beginning of the wave and we had to essentially cover an entire extra wave.

[BlackPimple]

YES, FINALLY A NEW BUILDER. THANK YOU ZOLDEN. 

i think everyone agree crystal units are a bit expensive esp if u only have 1 crystal.  10 to build golem. and 20 to upgrade.  with 1 crystal, its difficult. 

im sure ull keep working to balance this builder out. 

BTW, i think you should work on donation level 2 next.  we have probe now.. what else could be cool for donation level 2?  idk...

[BlackPimple]

how about making golem 10 crystals.  upgrade 15? 

[BlackPimple]

can u give us an idea of why you made it 10 20

but negro is 12 10

to upgrade

[Zolden]

BlackPimple

I'm actively testing this this builder to balance it. In the meanwhile I'm playing other builders and slightly adjust them.

For now it feels that Crystal buidler is a bit op, as it allows bigger gold income at last wave. It may feel a bit weak at start, but has deep self-amplifying possibilities, which makes its development exponential. Unlike linear Mixed buidler.

High crystal prices were dictated by the necessity of limiting golem/king rush.

And I will consider your idea about "negro" subdolak prices. Now they feel a bit too low. I may lower gold prices, but increase sub ones.

CrazyCalvin

Good point, I even have it in the list bbut was lazy to implement so far :)

William Rutzler

If I remember correct, Beholder targets ranged units for sure, and probably magic ones too. But it's by type, not by weapon. So, if a crystallic unit is ranged, it won't be jumped by beholder. I'll think how to make it target enemies by weapon range, rather than type. Cause it was the intention, make it jump to long ranged enemies.

[Zolden]

spitfir...@yahoo.com

Sorry for not answering for so long. I've been too much into the new builder to thing about the whole game balance. I've thinked each of your ideas, and some of them will definitely be implemented. Thanks, this is a pretty useful list of changes.

A couple of questions:

Faceless - The buffs they provide should NOT buff anything but the initial race units.

Why? I wanted them to buff everything. Mage race may be a bit weak, but its ability to buff advanced towers is a compensation.

Billy - Upgrades should be make better so as to promote upgrading them, the heal should be given a cooldown.

Not sure I understood this one, could you rephrase?

[Zolden]

CaptainPanic

Good point about battletank.

Bauke Folkertsma

And the kicking players from the game - I'm still thinking about it. I won't kick dicks, it's hard to distinguish them from bad players. But I'd like to kick AFK players. It's easy to implement.

But one of my biggest concerns about the game is high performance. And checking afk may consume some performance, because using players input as event for a trigger causes lag. Maybe I'll use towers/mines placing as a sign of player being active, also making upgrades. Just need to pick a good threshold. Cause won't be cool to kick someone who just getting money for somethign expensive.

The only thing that delaying implementing it is that I never lost a game due to afk ally. And probably never had someone who didn't quit on return.

2 all

I hope to finish all balancing in a week, and then we can do tournaments

Thanks to all for balance notes, keep bringing your thoughs.

[grandep...@hotmail.it]

i'm just wanna report a bug, it happenes often on the boss at wave 24, it doesn't give you the gold when you kill it

anyway good job for the new builder it's very cool!! bye

[Noname]

Some stuff you may want to look into.

Fire Boost and Protection award tooltip says that it's "food boost award", should be corected to oil/crystal award.
Resource rewards stacks over each other, which forces to use them in unfavorable order.
Graderstuds after casting his ability may change focus (retarget), most noticable on wave 9.
Kills from Rexxar ability may not give bounty, most noticeable on wave 24, not sure about other waves.
Most unit ability tooltips (Fungal, Death Sphere, Prism, Lens, etc) dosn't say how much special damage they provide, would be nice to see that specified.

Balance thoughts, I think Battletanks are still little too cheap for their performance, I'd like to see some gold cost increase.
Robo campared with BT:
348 Gold 45 Oil 40 Met 20 Sub 10 Cry = 285 DPS
150 Gold 27 Oil 25 Met = 180 DPS not including ability

[BlackPimple]

dont increase too much on sub for negro units.  idk if it justifies their strength. 

also, please keep in mind about 30-40% of the time (in my experience so far), it's difficult to get high income like usual due to lack of res.  not sure if you set it like this on purpose to troll like other builders.  when i have 2-3+ crystals. very hard to come by sub, oil, and mana.  sometimes you'll get lucky of course w good res. 

also.. can u implement on load screen - showing who clicked ready and who hasn't like std. 

[J Wall]

Hello Zolden, sometime you should join the Official Mines and Magic Group on NA. Its being used to help organize the community for in house games and the upcoming tourney. http://mnmtourny.freeforums.org/test-forum-1-f2.html Not many have posted, but we have 7 teams at the moment. I want more ;-D Any ideas? ;-D

[Zolden]

grandep...@hotmail.it 

Yes, I'm aware of this issue, but can't determine the reason behind it yet.

Noname

Thank you. Btw, Rexxar ability doesn't affect bosses. So, the reasone is somwhere else. Any hints appreciated.

BlackPimple

Yea, I wanted to add that list of players at start screen, maybe will.

And yea, I won't hurt "negro" builder much, it is almost fine.

J Wall

Good Idea about the tournament related forum. I could put some info on starting screen. Could even replace the map link (sad, we can't put two links there).

Though, I'd do it a bit later, because right now the game is a bit out of balance after the new changes. And new changes to go.

[D9wnf411]

Hey Zolden I donated you 5€ for getting the reward points. But I didnt received them. Could you check pls? My name on EU Server is ChillBuddha. thanks a lot

[D9wnf411]

Ah yeah and yesterday I had a game where someone started with 7 arcs in wave 1 !!! but they disappeared after wave ended

[J Wall]

Ok. I can postpone it until a later date. I assumed there would be balancing I wasn't sure as to the extent of patching that would ensue. Ill just go back to a TBA ;-D. Ill keep you posted.

[BlackPimple]

when 1 vs 4, 2 vs 4.  if random - a lil bit more gold? +6 for 2 vs 4, and +7 for 1.4? or +10 for 1 vs 4? 

what do u think? 

btw, great job on new units to keep the game interesting. 

i think there should be more reward for random period... thoughts?

[BlackPimple]

also, what are your thoughts about extending waves til 40?

[Zolden]

D9wnf411

Tell me your bnet ID (you can see it included in the string when you click "donate" in game) or the email associated with paypal (or at least part of it if you don't want to reveal it publicly). So I could search.

That 7 arcs was my fault, forgot to remove them after testing. Some people were clever enough to sell them at wave 1 to get tons of money, then they have been reported by some ardent players as cheaters :))

JWall

Ok, good. Hope it wont' take much time.

BlackPimple

Isn't money reward for killing extended amounts of sends enough? I thought about weakening sends when uneven teams.

And I could actually add a couple of waves, but I'm not sure it's reqired. Right now it feels like at wave 37 a thrifty player can create a perfect army composition to meet the opposing team.

[BlackPimple]

if it's 1 vs 4 i think the 1 player would benefit from 1 extra mine build if he had extra +7 or more.  but the thing is, u dont get sends all the time even when 1 vs 4. 

[Alucard]

Greetings & salutations Zolden, I'm a long time player, but first time poster. First off, I give you mad props for designing such a brilliantly fun game. A brief caveat; if my criticism sounds at all harsh, it's not directed towards you. I'm just stating the simple facts and I speak 

my mind blatantly so I apologize if you're offended. I assure you it's not my intention. Just offering you suggestions for improvement on an already great game. So just a few things off the top of my head reading recent posts. BlackPimple's ideas about 1vs4 are invalid and 

idiotic. He likes to troll games and make them 1vs4 in the lobby and then just eco's and relies on mg until he can get his army up. Not only does this waste everyone's time, but against a pro team it's just a useless tactic because he'll be destroyed by sends so it's in his 

best interest to cease & decease his moronic acts. Now onto real matters that actually affect the lot of us. Guaranteed starting resources. It needs to be addressed and soon. I know Hunter has spoken with you about this before and I know your thoughts and reasoning on the matter, but your logic is flawed. An example for you is as follows: I've been testing out the new paladin. An awesome new unit I must say, but as a pro player, I still won't consider playing combined race because most of the time you don't even start with a farm so you can't even get the paladin. Now your reply to this would be it forces you to tech into different trees which is all fine and dandy, but what it actually forces me to do is not play the race at all because it's completely obsolete. Your logic is also flawed in that many times the random generator will only give you 1 or 2 of a resource even after expoing. You cannot tech into different trees if you're only given one or two metals or mana. For this purpose, original races need to be viable possibilities long term into end game and enhanced with other units in the tech tree, but they're not. Not even the new crystal builder which will hold dragon by itself barely, but is just completely obsolete in final battle against opposing army. Why do you want to punish a player for simply not being able to defend against creeps solely due to lack of resources? I understand that there is a subplot in this game as it is a race against the opposing team to expo for extra resources, but I can't tell you how many times I've won that race and was still denied in my tech due to lack of significant resources. Also, if you would make more upgrades for towers in original starting races as you've brilliantly done with the crystal race, skelly mage, and paladin, you wouldn't see a set uniform build like in STD. If you give the players more options, they'll branch out. My point being, why would a pro want to play any other race right now except mech? Give us a reason to. At least one farm needs to be included in combined builder's starting plot as well at least one starting mana for every race. Ranged, magic, and melee builders are all a bloody mess and not even worth playing at this point without further improvements to them. I have many ideas to combat the trolling of the random generator such as an in game resource marketplace where players can buy/sell/trade res and so on, so forth. You can feel free to contact me privately if you wish to hear more on that topic or anything else. Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter.

~Card over 'n out

[Zolden]

Lol, finally fixed the bug where Immortass boss doesn't give gold. Its "green gas" area damage has been affecting himself too, so, sometimes he was the one who deals the killing damage, and takes the reward with him in a grave :)

Alucard

Thanks for these reasonings. Paladin was added to meet the situation where a player has a little bit of everything, which isn't enough to push effectively one of tech branches. So, the absence of some resource in the beginning would only mean that player has other stuff, because RNG can troll the players with the kinds of starting resources, but can't do with the amounts, becasue 4 is guaranteed. So, it's realy hard to find a combination of resources, that would block all winning strats for the first buidleer.

Same situation for Melee builder. Skeleton mage meets the situation, where amount of metal isnt' enough for a nice ranged tech tree. And amount of mana isn't enough for mages. So, one can get a skeleton mage and have some time to find more resources untill the waves start to push.

But still, new towers can't handle the whole game, they make the races more flexible, but don't guarantyy win without teching.

Though, Crystal race still badass for the last battle, even though you had an opposite impression. Crystal builder is very self-amplifying. A good balance of all towers may turn in into unbeatable ass kicking machine, that can effectively participate the final battle with nice aoe by prisms and kings, good armor from kings and nice long range damage dealers from towers and lenses. Though, this is possible only if player got at least one metal, second crystal and at least one mana.

Also, yes, sometimes game's realy hard on resources, and pros may lose to noobs. I kinda like it. Feels challenging when you stuck with shitty resources, have no income, hardly clearing the waves, and middle is already taken. It requires precise long term calculations to survive and strike back.

And I agree, that builders are not not balanced, I'm working on it. Purpose is to make them all equal for pros to play.

Marketplace is an interesting idea. I've already tried it in one of my older maps. It was Heroes of Mines and Magic remake, and there are too 7 resources, and players were able to sell and buy between each other, and it worked pretty nice. But I'm not sure about the necessity of implementing this in Mines and Magic. Though, I still have it in the list, and if I see a reason to implement, I may add it.

And finally, I would like to hear more ideas from you. And from others.

For example, what about the change of the Conjurer branch? Any thoughts?

[spitfir...@yahoo.com]

First and foremost crystal builder. The biggest issue is the armor buff, it's what makes trying to balance the race extremely difficult. If you're behind the curve you get slammed, if you're ahead of it everything does 1 damage. This should probably be changed to a damage buff, which is more appropriate, since crystal doesn't have any decent tanks in the first place. The armor adds a dichotomy to the race, you want crystal tanks to take advantage of the armor bonus, but the only one that exists is a poor 800 health turtle. The initial build orders are so robust against sends that otherwise put wrenches or forces zaps from any other race. Lings, marines, they're pointless against them. In addition their hold is so cheap and effective, things should probably get changed price wise.

Melee is still the weakest race. Skeleton mages don't do enough single target damage, their buff is useless beyond wave 6, you also have to have 2 of them to benefit the buff on eachother. Fungal berserk is useless since no melee DPS units exist. If a skeleton archer existed as a third upgrade to supplement single target, ranged DPS it would be a step in the right direction. Or an adjustment to mage damage, maybe if only a single target exists the multi shot stacks like stalkers, but I feel their damage isn't enough for that to alone compensate. I find it odd that a good deal of other races have better tanks than the tank race.

Ranged is actually in a decent place now, could use love somewhere, a t3 upgrade to one of their units maybe.

Magic is even more insane, but the changes did actually make banshees worth building. 1 unit holds until wave 6, then 2 units holds until 15. It's completely insane, only somewhat made less powerful than others because it isn't assured sub/crystal/oil.

Necro was probably over-nerfed over the patches, mostly the dragon not holding 3 is the problem when combined with the new price of the flesh beast upgrade.

Mech is way too efficient an early game builder and way too many of their unit upgrades are useless. The entire race needs a rework. Death spheres are a decent unit until you realize how many of the tanks you need in the back, in addition to massive resources just to build them, to sustain their mana. The other spider upgrade is barely an upgrade. I'd go as far as to say the tanks are useless and pretty much should never be built, and the upgrades to the billies and the spiders are equally useless. No other race suffers this.

Thoughts on specific units:
T1 Arcs: Too many units use 5 range, make them 6 so they can layer with stalkers.
Divine Arcs: Way too cost effective, possibly could need another endgame mineral cost, oil or sub.

T1 conjurers: Should have 6 range, see arc explanation, also if it's possible the scorpions should spawn maybe 2-3 range in front of them so they don't get stuck.
Conjurer(firestorm): Maybe add a numeric value for what firestorm does?
Conjurer(scorpion): They just get shredded on dragon. You make them too tanky their going to be problematic just like old conjurers. If you make them too expensive they won't be effective. If you give them range, they'll be problematic like before. Honestly I say fuck it and remove them.

Sun Idols: Way too cheap metal-wise.

Reapers: Should be able to shoot behind idols

Beholders: Probably should just be removed/reworked. It would be cool if this was a DPS melee unit, sort of like it is, but less gimmicky. It does good damage when it leaps, but it rarely leaps. Maybe code it so it's the last unit to be attacked? And give it a ramp up damage like flesh beast or some other mechanic?

High templar: Pretty worthless unit. Sure, it holds really well early on, but they're expensive and delay real tech like arcs which hold just fine. And arcs are powerhouses all game, templars fall off. They're way too pricy for what they are.

Ice queen: The patch of ice is way too strong for how cheap the unit is. Give it a slow on auto attack, remove the patch, or add the patch to an upgrade to the unit. Like a t3 that's pricy.

Mineguard: There are plenty of games where it was CLEARLY not a draw. Like, 5-6 reapers, 3-4 idols, and various random tanks and the mineguards can pull off a hold. This problem is multi-faceted. The slow is stupidly powerful, when the mineguards have ~15 range(adjusting for positioning). If they dealt 50% damage to player controlled units and turbo was removed for the final showdown, it should be fine. It could still clean up a few units, so if it's a real close match it would still end in a draw. But if you have a decent force left it wouldn't be killed.

To answer specifically your comments:
Magic is way too powerful of a race, literally the best race, by a ridiculously large margin. That's why having the only units that really scale your endgame units so heavily is broken.

Billy upgrades are useless. The laser does okayish damage, but needs tanks to recharge, which makes it not worth it. The bomb billies are even worse. You're better off just spamming normal billies, because the heal just constantly ticks once one dies.

On a final note, I think the initial 3 races(metal/food/magic) should have some caveat of strength that the higher tier ones do not. It's simply not fair they get guaranteed endgame resources.

[Mateusz M]

My thoughts: 

 

Ratings: 

-Melee builder 1,5/6 

-Ranged 3,5/6 

-Combined 4,5/6 

-Magic 5,5/6 

 

Melee-They rely on tech towers much more than other builders. They translate poor into mid, late game, You need good damage dealers later on with melee but they are expensive resource wise. You will need a lot of metal(reapers++) or a lot of mana+crystals(queens++) or a lot of metal and oil(battletanks++) to stay competitive.  Maybe additional upgrade to marines(with decent dps, spamming a lot of marines is a bad idea  late game wise) with high gold cost or with additional food cost would make help, or useful caster without additional resources required(or maybe if it was food). Also I don’t think they are that good tanks  too. Maybe give them some thorns, damage dealt debuff like banshee? In my opinion, they should have one tower with like 2k+hp. Another problem- since your kill time is longer than for any other builder, enemy ranged sendings are even more deadly. 

 

Ranged-Good damage,  quite good mid, in late game(useful auras, debuffs) they may need some tanks though and after putting like 2 of each tower or so, their bonuses are wasted. 

 

Combined -I think this builder is the closest one to the most balanced. You have good tankers(which can hold from early to late-upgraded, balanced upgrade cost), decent archers(losing on power in late though), and high elfs which I don’t like(mainly upped)(that fire shield is just soo bad in later waves, when your tanks die in few hits and mobs have too much health)- Generally any wave with multiple mobs can be more or less done without any use of aoe damage dealers, you cant say that about boss waves and aoe damage dealers-their effectiveness is heavily reduced. 

 

Magic-I find them to have top damage, they translate to the late game the best- they all have very useful buffs/debuffs , they require only mana(and not much of it) and now, since banshees can stun enemies for quite a long time, they can even live good without tanks. I think, you should consider reducing their stun duration and maybe make more adjustments here and there. 

 

Other thoughts: 

AoE: 

I will repeat that once more: 

Generally any wave with multiple mobs can be more or less done without any use of aoe damage dealers, you cant say that about boss waves and aoe damage dealers-their effectiveness is heavily reduced. 

If you could give every mob with aoe some useful effects(like slith does) they wouldn’t be so bad. High Templar(upped) and High elf upped, collosses- I wish they had some extra (useful) effects like magic builder towers do. 

 

Sendings: 

Any chance we can see more sendings soon? Maybe food-iron combined or even ones with cost of 3 resources? 

 

Also I would like to say, your map is pretty fun to play(maybe some day someone will make from this  A+ game, just like what happened to  DOTA :) ). 

 

 

[Mateusz M]

And i forgot.Tech cost of  towers like snow queen should have all of their resources required to build included, few times, I have researched an unit, but could never build it because I hadnt that additional resource.