| 07-22-2004, 10:26 PM | #1 |
UPDATED August 1st 2004 This is the third public release of Dark Crescent Tower Defence This is your chance to get your name in the credits, except it requires you doing a little work. First and foremost play the game, and save a replay. To make things easier for me, save the replay with your name and beta version. Versions are labeled with alpha values (a,b,c etc). So I would use FyreDaugC. This just helps keep things more organized. What I'm hoping for by getting you to send a replay is to rule out ANY left over uber strategies. If I notice a bunch of people using the same strategy, I will tweak things a little to make it a little less effective, or buff up some other things so it stays neutral. Now screenshots can help too, there are many things a replay wont show me. If you find a spelling error somewhere, hit the Print Screen button. Errors anywhere (tooltips, display text, general typing) I want to fix (assuming I missed something anyways). They can also help missing icons, or things that dont look quite right. And last but definately not the least important is feedback. What is unbalanced mainly. Code:
|Beta 116a 072204 - Initial public release
* * * * * * * * *
|Beta 116b 072404 - Fixed level 1's collision issue
- Added text at beginning of level 1 displaying what level air/invis is
- Made the camera move instantly to the builder you just trained
- Replaced the stunning tower's icon, which looks passive
- Poison Tower's passive ability looks passive now
- Replaced the poison tower's icon, which looks passive
- Created a new icon for Death Tower, Earth Tower, Holy Tower and Slowing Tower to look passive
- Created a new icon for the Death Tower's corpse explosion
- Added an ending after the final level, displays current version and directs to new versions
- Added a 2 second wait after the last creep killed, makes the displayed text look better
- Changed 1 initialization trigger to run at 0.01 seconds, making the initial load time less
- Added upgrade check for detecting tower and all the bonus towers, and the runner unit aswell
reducing some lag when upgrading (attack damage and attack range)
- Reduced the Tower Builder unit scaling value to 2.2-(2.5) and moved it into the ground a bit
- Removed some useless object data
- Reduced attack damage and attack range upgrades time to 2-(3)
- Minor terrain changes/fixes
- Changed the repeating tower's splash damage (full/half/small) to 20/40/60-(15/30/60)
- Shifted the start locations to be centered on the Tower Builder unit
- Tweaked the upgrade refresh trigger a little
|Beta 116c 073104 - Changed the refresh trigger for pathing to every 3 seconds-(2)
- Added a trigger to remove the "preplace" unit from selection
- Fixed the move camera trigger
- Changed the color of the ping when you type -creeps to red-(green)
- Changed the color of the ping when you type -items to yellow-(green)
- Added a sound effect when you create a tower builder
- Added a special effect when you create a tower builder
- Minor terrain changes/fixes/balances (Adding more keypoints)
- Changed 1 initialization trigger to run at 0.01 seconds, making the initial load time less
- Added a couple more tips
- Modified the way items are dropped, the chance for a drop has been reduced a very small amount
- Changed the tooltips for the build tower dialog, now has changed color and the hotkey in it
- Renamed the Tower Builders to Tower Builder Center
- Created an upgrade to make the tower builders move instantly and made it available in the
Tower Builder Center to research costing 5 gold
- Gave the tower builders a really fast move speed when they dont move instantly and can fly
- Fixed the -pay trigger displaying 50% less, instead of 50% more
- Fixed the money tower creating money in non-playable areas
- Fixed level 31 repeating never-ending
- Reduced the gold given by bonus levels
- Reduced money tower's money range to 375 and 475-(450 and 600)
- Increased money tower cost to 35-(30) and increased build time to 60 seconds-(30 seconds)
- Renamed the tooltip ability for money tower to Recieve/Cast money-(Recieve money)
- Increased base cost of Crippling Aura/Slowing Aura to 6/8-(5/7), still adding 1 per level
- Added a check for the 2nd bonus round when it adds the Attack Speed and Critical Strike to the
Runner, Spell Tower, Detecting Tower and Money Tower
- Added a check for adding the upgrade tower ability to the Runner
- Changed the initial time for the first level in Solo Spawn mode to be 45 seconds-(35 seconds)
- Re-organized the trees at the Y
- Added more trees in already-unbuildable terrain to make it clear that you can't build there
- Added another tower to the basic builder, Long Tower. And added all triggers to go with it
- Fixed an upgrade bug regarding the money tower
- Air/Ground cannon towers cooldow changed to 1.95-(1.90) and splash damage (full/half/small)
to 30/60/120-(25/50/100) and increased max damage by 1
- Increased repeating cannon tower's cooldown to 0.95-(0.90)
- Changed the ping color of the money tower's create money to yellow-(green)
- Changed the Bonus Level 20's Skeleton Book prize to be leak proof and ping yellow-(green)
- Increased Skeleton Warrior's move speed to 266-(100) and turn rate to 1.00-(0.66)
- Fixed the Ice Tower bug
- The blocking tower will be more of a guidline to where the units move, if you block entirely
the creeps will just walk over them. As long as you room open they will walk that path
- Removed some useless trigger data
- Merged some map initialization triggers
- Added some conditions to certain triggers to make the game run smoother
- Partially re-wrote the fire tower burning trigger, which fixes the bug only allowing the unit
to burn if it was hit by player 1, and fixes many overwritable values making it 100% effective
- Removed many currently unused multiboard triggers
- Added a dynamic stat system for every tower showing total attacks, kills and efficiency which
is togglable. Shown when you select a tower
- Fixed a bug with typing -creeps not giving the proper value when playing challenge mode
- Fixed a bug with -pay giving 50% more of what you paid, instead of 50% less
- Changed boss level to have 1980-(2200) hp and 3-(6) armor
- Attack Damage/Range upgrades cost 6-(7) gold
- Fixed the sell bug, where you would sell a tower, but you couldn't use that space again
- Changed the Arrow Tower's scaling value to 0.80-(1.00)
- You can use -c for -creeps and -i for -items and -n for -next
- Noted the conflicting dates between the buildsA few things that I KNOW don't work entirely are these (please dont email me with these): -Multiboard isnt finished (I was working on it before, then added some more features and never updated the multiboard, though it does work for some things, it is not complete. It wont cause any crashes) -There arent enough items. As I have 4 buildings for selling items and they are no where near full it seems like a waste of space. But it will eventually fill up. -Multi-player based modes are not really supported. I havent disabled them, and for the most part they should work, except FFA modes (havent even started). But this test is for single player only, don't email me ANYTHING regarding team play. Please give feedback on this though: -Things are getting layed out properly, you still may get lost every now and then, please tell me where you were having trouble understanding something and I will be sure to change it Now, the current version is Beta116c (thirs release) so here is the link to download. http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dct...20Beta116c.w3x Dont send anything to my email address listed on wc3c, thats for personal use only. For emails regarding the TD, please use [email protected]. Don't worry about file size of anything as I have 1gb of space available to me there. Send as many screenshots and replays as you want. Please label the subject DCTD or something along those lines so it can be filtered. Note, by downloading this and playing it I dont expect anything from you, this is a public release. But those of you who want to help out, please do so - so I can improve the game some more. SCREENSHOTS: http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/1.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/2.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/3.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/4.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/5.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/6.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/7.jpg http://fyredaug.wc3campaigns.com/dctd/8.jpg One thing I know that is buggy on this version is the new tower stats code I wrote. It will be changed for next version |
| 07-23-2004, 03:27 AM | #2 | |
Quote:
Things that I will strive to have done for the next beta are: 100% for sure: -Description will be written -Icons will be complete -Proper Ending Possible for next beta are: -Complete multiboard (whether totally functional or not, the layout will be done) -Blocking Tower will block -Ice Tower bug, which leaves the ability there when it shouldnt. |
| 07-23-2004, 07:59 AM | #3 |
-add color to hotkey in the name of the building -move camera to players square once you choose a builder -Tell the players at the beginning of the game when the first invisible and air levels are -Tell the players and the END of the round what the next level is going to be, not right before it starts, and tell what types they will be (air, invisible,etc.) I didn't know I was on an invisible round until I lost lives when I thought I had killed them all. -remove trees at the fork in the road. It's the best place to build and most of it is covered up by trees. While I'm on that thought remove everything thats covering places you can build next to the road. I love your idea of making towers heroes! This looks very promising. Here's my replay, I quit after a while as, I have to admit, I was getting bored. Games made for BNET arn't fun in singleplayer. CeoA |
| 07-23-2004, 08:32 AM | #4 | |||
Quote:
I actually dont think there is anything wrong with single player mode, it gives a different type of gameplay. I left open about 15 different strategies to start with, each one you choose forks off from there. Quote:
The hot keys for all towers are qwer asdf zxcv It says so in the description of the tower. Quote:
Yeah those have been mentioned. It will be done. What did you find was boring about it? Too hard and you got frusterated with it? It's meant to be hard, so theres replay value in it. Honestly me and my friend kept beating it by finding certain strategies, so we weakened them a little. Once you find a good one it gets easier. EDIT: Be sure you use different locations, we spent lots of time creating key spots to put towers, if you noticed there are limited places to build mass towers. Try building near the beginning, or near the first bend, or during the long straight away. |
| 07-23-2004, 09:03 AM | #5 |
It wasn't the game that bored me, I just don't like playing multiplayer based games alone. Even in free for alls on BNet you can still talk to people. I don't know why I added that though as it had nothing to do with the actual game. I figured that might have been why you put the trees there, I just said that incase you put the trees there to make it look better which wouldn't justify it. I'd still like to see the hotkey colored yellow in the name of the building. |
| 07-23-2004, 09:18 AM | #6 | |
Quote:
Uhm that wouldnt happen, the hotkeys are set to be left hand clicked, if you see it in the top left position of the build structure area, its Q. So arrow tower in the top left is Q. Cant really put it properly in there. And just incase people couldnt figure it out, at the bottom of description it says Hotkey: <key> |
| 07-23-2004, 11:27 PM | #7 |
Well, it looks pretty nice, but I have a feeling this would not get spread a whole lot. It's hard, thats nice, but it is also not very noob friendly at all, and when that happens people go "this sucks" before they even really try it. Also, it is okay to stop people from massing towers in certain places, but leave the options a bit more open. There are a lot of places where you can almost build in a corner, or where it would be useful, but one corner cut off. The game can crash if you give the builders certain strings of orders, for example the normal builder caused a crash when I had a fairly large que of normal arrow towers to be built. Probably has something to do with the autoblink. The last thing is, while there are some different combinations that work, there are also some basically useless, or very very bad combinations also. You might want to look into making it so there are no "bad" combinations. Make everything at least kind of useful so there is not such a huge difference between bad and good stratagies (this will also make the game more replayable, as people would have to just slowly tweek things instead of doing hit or miss with a build) so... Suggestions: •Color code tower stats instead of all green •Do something to help out newbies, or add in difficulty settings •Maybe make the drop rate a little less random. One game I got something from almost every unit in the first wave, the next I got 1 item in the first 4. From a balance standpoint, that would make it kind of hard to properly balance. •Look at tower balance and maybe decrease the gap between good and bad stratagies so game play is not "hit or miss", rather you just slowly do worse as the levels go on with less useful builds. •Make the Castle smaller, it is just annoying to me for some reason. Think thats all, some nice stuff in there though :) |
| 07-24-2004, 03:06 AM | #8 | |
Quote:
^^ The main purpose of this beta testing. A replay and screenshots with a description of what to change would be helpful, because basically that tells me nothing. I know the strats need balancing but that'll happen. This is a single player beta for a reason, so it doesnt get spread all around bnet and people say it sucks before they play it. Before it goes bnet I want it to be appreciable. EDIT: I never posted this on bnet forums yet, its currently just wc3c testing. |
| 07-24-2004, 08:30 PM | #9 | |
Quote:
Thats 1 thing that gives it replay value, sometimes things are out of your control forcing you to use a different strategy. The more items you find the better, the balance assumes you get atleast 1 from every level, if you dont, it makes it a little harder, if you do, it makes it a little easier. Made it that way for a reason. Beta116b is close to being ready |
| 07-27-2004, 08:05 PM | #10 |
So far the 3rd beta will have these changes: Code:
|Beta 116c 072604 - Changed the refresh trigger for pathing to every 3 seconds-(2)
- Added a trigger to remove the "preplace" unit from selection
- Fixed the move camera trigger
- Changed the color of the ping when you type -creeps to red-(green)
- Changed the color of the ping when you type -items to yellow-(green)
- Added a sound effect when you create a tower builder
- Added a special effect when you create a tower builder
- Minor terrain changes/fixes/balances (Adding more keypoints)
- Changed 1 initialization trigger to run at 0.01 seconds, making the initial load time less
- Added a couple more tips
- Modified the way items are dropped, the chance for a drop has been reduced a very small amount
- Changed the tooltips for the build tower dialog, now has changed color and the hotkey in it
- Renamed the Tower Builders to Tower Builder Center
- Created an upgrade to make the tower builders move instantly and made it available in the
Tower Builder Center to research costing 5 gold
- Gave the tower builders a really fast move speed when they dont move instantly and can fly
- Fixed the -pay trigger displaying 50% less, instead of 50% more
- Fixed the money tower creating money in non-playable areas
- Fixed level 31 repeating never-ending
- Reduced the gold given by bonus levels
- Reduced money tower's money range to 375 and 475-(450 and 600)
- Increased money tower cost to 35-(30) and increased build time to 60 seconds-(30 seconds)
- Renamed the tooltip ability for money tower to Recieve/Cast money-(Recieve money)
- Increased base cost of Crippling Aura/Slowing Aura to 6/8-(5/7), still adding 1 per level
- Added a check for the 2nd bonus round when it adds the Attack Speed and Critical Strike to the
Runner, Spell Tower, Detecting Tower and Money Tower
- Added a check for adding the upgrade tower ability to the Runner
- Changed the initial time for the first level in Solo Spawn mode to be 45 seconds-(35 seconds)
- Re-organized the trees at the Y
- Added more trees in already-unbuildable terrain to make it clear that you can't build there
- Added another tower to the basic builder, Long Tower. And added all triggers to go with it
- Fixed an upgrade bug regarding the money tower
- Air/Ground cannon towers cooldow changed to 1.95-(1.90) and splash damage (full/half/small)
to 30/60/120-(25/50/100) and increased max damage by 1
- Increased repeating cannon tower's cooldown to 0.95-(0.90)
- Changed the ping color of the money tower's create money to yellow-(green)
- Changed the Bonus Level 20's Skeleton Book prize to be leak proof and ping yellow-(green)
- Increased Skeleton Warrior's move speed to 266-(100) and turn rate to 1.00-(0.66)It's not quite finished yet, but hopefully in a day or so |
| 08-01-2004, 08:09 PM | #11 |
Third beta release today. HUGE list of changes |
| 08-09-2004, 01:05 AM | #12 |
I am now back in town and the next beta should have alot of fixes and be done within a couple days, assuming I dont work close shifts. Even so, a couple days should be enough, its already pretty close |
| 08-19-2004, 05:40 AM | #13 |
I'm sorry a ton of stuff has come up and I havent been around at all lately. I never got any work done since my last post. But still, any comments is welcomed. |