| 04-21-2009, 06:44 AM | #1 |
I've never seriously played a TD in my life, so I could just be far off my rocker here... but the people I've mentioned this idea to have all voiced their opinions that it is a novel idea that could become something good. I wrote the following abstract for a "Planar Tower Defense" map, and I'm curious as to what the general populace thinks of them, so here you go: Abstract:
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* *
* Planar Tower Defense *
* by Pyrogasm *
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*====================================================*
- Planar TD is themed in an arcane magic-esque style: lots of magic, few arrows and weapons
- This map is a Tower Defense, so obviously there will be spawns that move along a set path throughout a maze-like area, and towers built by the players to
fend off the creeps
- This is not a solo TD (FFA), but rather the players are separated into two teams, with one maze area for each team
- The 'unique' aspect of Planar TD is that all players may build towers on both of the mazes, not just their team's own maze, so at all times you are
occupied with:
- Defending your own side
- Helping your allied creeps on the enemy side
- Upgrading your creeps
Mazes:
- There are two identical mazes, one for each team
- The mazes have a set path that creeps follow, and are decorated with some nifty terraining and stuff
- Along the mazes there are specific building sites called "Nodes," upon which towers may be built
- The idea is that there are two parallel planes, one for your team and one for your enemy's team; your builder may phase between the two planes at will
Creeps:
- The creeps that spawn and move on team 1's plane are 'owned' by team 2, and vice versa, so 'your' units are assaulting the enemy plane
- Creeps follow the path laid out in the maze, whatever that may be, unless interrupted by some spell/ability/tower for some reason
- Creeps may be upgraded in some way by the players on a team; dunno how/why yet
Towers:
- Depending on which plane a tower is in (yours or your enemy's), its effects will be different
- On your side, towers with an attack will attack enemy units to attempt to eliminate them
- On your opponent's side, your towers will attack your own units, but will heal the attacked units, rather than damage them
- Towers with self-explanitory and easily switched effects will have these effects inverted when on the opposite side, so for example: a tower that
slows enemy units on your side would instead speed up your units on the other plane
- Towers with more complex effects may simply have different ones depending on the plane
- Towers may only be built by your builder at Nodes, and only one tower may occupy a node at a time
- Once fully constructed on a Node, towers may phase back and forth between the two planes freely and exist on whichever side the player wishes at any
given time; if a second tower occupies the sister node in the other plane, the towers can no longer phase until one node is empty
- Towers may only attack units on the plane that they are currently in (no cross-planar effects unless stated otherwise)
- A tower may be destroyed by its owning player at any time for no cost
- Each type of tower (cold tower, poison tower, advanced poison tower, that sort of thing) has a 'rank', which is on a scale from 1-10
- Towers may be built on top of existing towers if the new tower's rank is greater than or equal to the old tower's
- When a tower is overwritten, a small compensation is given to the owner of the tower
- In this way, players may overwrite existing towers (of their own, or of other allied/enemy players) to prevent a tower gridlock with all the nodes
filled
- If the rank system isn't a good idea, there are a few other ways that building towers could be restricted to prevent gridlock:
- Each tower has a base cost plus an additional cost that varies with the number of towers your team currently has in the game
- 100% return rate on destroyed towers
- Whenever a tower you build attacks/makes its effect in the enemy plane, it diminishes slightly, and after X attacks/effects in the enemy plane your
towers expire
- Players can nuke enemy towers in their plane by spending X resources; X may be large if the number of enemy towers on your side is small, and small
if the number is large
Nodes:
- Different preset node configurations will be selectable at the start of the map, or players can choose where to place the nodes themselves
- Nodes are something like circle of power indicators (visually)
- Nodes change color to indicate whether the sister node is occupied or not, and if so, by which team's tower
Other Structures:
- Players may be able to build other types of structures (tower enhancers, traps, etc.) that may or may not be able to phase between the planes
- What these structures are, I have no idea, but I believe they will exist
Tower Examples:
- Basic attacking tower: damages enemy units; heals allied units
- Slowing tower: slows enemy units; speeds up allied units
- Precision tower: instantly kills an enemy unit for 2x gold; kills one of your own units, granting the enemy no gold (has a very slow attackspeed)
- Animation tower: occasionally revives one of your slain units to fight again; removes enemy corpses on your side so they may not be reanimated
- Blink tower: teleports one of your units ahead a short distance; teleports an enemy unit back a short distance
- Phase tower: phases units between planes; when a unit is not on the plane it should be, it will attack units that are enemies of it; after a time, the
the unit will deteriorate and cease to exist
- Those are just some basic ideas, but you can see how they are opposite on different sides.
- It is possible that perhaps different things can be added to terrain tiles, and they would affect units that walk over them; they can be placed in
either plane, but are permanent once built and cannot phasePlease don't just TL;DR here, it's really not a long thing to read. |
| 04-21-2009, 03:21 PM | #3 |
The creeps could be upgraded to own the other team. Why not implement random creeps. What kept element tower defense interesting for me were the "elemental creeps" ie. each creep had its base element. Something like that would be awesome. Maybe even allow the other team to throw a curveball and force spawn a certain "element." So if you've been preparing for fire creatures to spawn, suddenly earth creatures do. Or a combination. |
| 04-21-2009, 09:23 PM | #4 |
I like the second alternative to the "node full removal" thing compared to all others, but the original one can also work (rank system). I also like the idea overall, however, it seems that any attacking tower would be too rigged on an opposing side. In a normal TD, creeps go by normal towers that always attack and some still leak. With this healing mechanic, even with only a few healing towers on the enemy side can be a real pain and cause both teams to lose. For example, Team 1 builds very few towers on their own side, and build most towers on the enemy side. Because of the constant healing, Team 2 finds it hard to kill their own creeps and tries to keep a balance between the 2 planes. Creeps then pass and then GG. Unless of course, creeps/lives count is different than most tower defenses. The different nodes placement idea is pretty sweet too. This could be a really awesome TD imo. @rizla: That would be just copying elemental td then, no? Perhaps different armor types (obviously), but elements? |
| 04-21-2009, 10:59 PM | #5 |
I remember discussing this with you a while ago. I loved the idea, quite original. I'll provide some more ideas and feedback some time :D |
| 04-22-2009, 07:01 AM | #6 | |||
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| 04-22-2009, 07:50 AM | #7 |
I didn't mean use the elemnts. Just using it as an example. Armours would be a good alternative. But the tricky thing will be using the same idea but making it unique. The armours could be upgradable. So if you could upgrade the armour level of your opponents creeps. |
| 04-22-2009, 10:10 AM | #8 | |
To avoid having too many triggers fired, the towers would have to be replaced with a different unit type when they are built in the enemy maze. Doing this would also allow different costs for upgrading towers if they are in the enemy maze, etc. Quote:
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| 04-22-2009, 09:23 PM | #9 | ||
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I personally like the 2nd idea because it makes sure that both sides cannot lose at the same time, as in both team leaking and then GG. However, that could also cause problems (sort of?) when say, both teams don't build or something like that. Quote:
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| 05-01-2009, 07:54 AM | #10 |
Okay, say I wanted to lay some groundwork for actually doing something on this idea... what are some TDss that I might benefit from playing? Something perhaps similar in style, or just generally good, well-thought-out Tower Defense maps. I say this because I really have never played a TD in my life, and I think it is necessary to have a feel for the genre of map before I start out trying to create something here. |
| 05-07-2009, 04:07 AM | #11 |
Definaly elemental td, it is a very well made game. There are quite a few miscellaneous tds out there, some that i would reccommend is Mapharrozo td (sp?) and green td. Another really well made TD is zoator td (survival or team), but that is a little far off from your proposed td, as you build INSIDE the creeps path instead of outside. Anything else that is made by zoator is good too. EDIT: If you need help, check this out: http://world-editor-tutorials.thehel...t/towerdef.php. (I dont know how im supposed to do the links but i hope this is ok). |
| 05-07-2009, 08:04 PM | #12 |
The idea itself is stale; not worth it itself. You need to build upon the idea; throwing a single new feature into an incredibly ancient genre isin't going to be incredibly interesting. Try digging deeper for some other features. (I always thought it'd be cool to build a literally maze of towers; where creeps have to follow the player built towerline) Skibi's TD is also a good example of a well made TD. |
| 05-08-2009, 10:30 AM | #13 | |
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Never make team vs team defence game with creep upgrades. It is simply impossible to balance. Towers that cast buffs and antibuffs is a better idea. For example frost tower gives your creeps +5 frost armor. The enemy builds faery fire tower that gives -5 armor buff. frost and fire are opposite buffs (cannot exist on one unit at the same time) So the last one that casts the buff wins. The thing about buffs-antibuff combos is they really make you react to enemy strategies. |