A good Tower Defense

Ideas anyone?

I'm trying to make a Tower Defense, but would like to know what "the people" want in a good tower defense game. I'm horrible at TD terrain, so I'd like some ideas on that too. What type of towers should I have? If you'd like to help please post, Thanks ^_^

Also, keep in mind that I want this balanced, so I want the good towers as well as the bad ones. Thanks again

Well first off its not a good idea to have "the good ones and the bad ones" because then people figure out what is good and what is bad rather quickly and then only use 1 or 2 of your towers... Speaking from experience I can tell you that in the XTDs with Rapid Fire towers, Level 1 Rapid Fire towers for 15 gold do 88 DPS/G (My little reference to Damage Per Second / Gold), more than doubling the next highest tower which is the ultimate...

The best thing to try to do is to get a diverse terrain, which I know isnt your strong point but just keep thinking of designs. Is it going to allow the user to build on the pathing area and maze or not? Allowing for mazing makes the game a lot more fun but can also cause problems. You need to decide if its gonna be team or not, and if its going to have it be total team effort or have each player get their own spawn.

If each player gets their own spawn, you should remember that keeping this balanced is very important (Size, number of turns, width, ect). If its total team effort than you should remember to keep the start area a straight direct line and harder to gaurd, and if you have multiple tracks to keep them seperate (so that people that build up close also have to deal with the fact that they cant get quite so much damage out there by building close to the start so that theres some sort of reason to build on the rest of your map.)

With this diverse terrain you need to make diverse towers. You should decide about what DPS/G your map is going to be. If you do not do this first its EXTREMELY likely your going to wind up with an unbalanced map. Then start making ideas for the towers, decide if your going to have different tiers towers/tower builders, if your going to have some sort of combination system. Also make sure to vary Damage Type. Some pretty common examples are

Sniper, Splash, Arrow/Single/Basic, Multishot, Rapid, Bounce, Short Range, ect... Usually you can just stick to your basic DPS/G. DPS/G = Damage Average / Cooldown Value / Gold

Keep in mind there are exceptions to just sticking in the DPS/G formula. For faster towers you should lower the DPS/G slightly, because they have the ability to retarget much more quickly. Also, any increases in range REALLY effect the total damage inflicted because it adds more time to the Tower's attack time, so you should have sharp drops/raises in DPS/G for changes in range. Also remember what targets these towers are going to be able to hit. If you have air only every 7 levels, paying the same amount of gold per DPS doesn't make sense for a tower that can only hit air.

Also, you should figure some pattern that makes upgrading worthwhile but not too good. Say you have your Base DPS/G at 10. So then you'd set your first towers to have 10. The next upgrade however may have maybe 8.5 or 9. Then another upgrade 7.5 or 8. As you get to the middle upgrade bottom out, and as you continue upgrading have the DPS/G build back up and perhaps over the base. The reason for this is to give a reason for either massing and upgrading, but not both. If every tower in the game has exactly the same Damage per Gold there is no game...

Also can't forget common effect towers - Slow Poison, DoT Poison, AE Slow Poison (Ice), Web/Ensnare, Benefitial Auras... Eh anything else you can think of really...

Now add in diverse units. Varying armor types can really play a big role, especially when armor levels get high and the reduction from 1 type ends up being 80% and for the another 20% based on tower type. If your allowing mazing, then ethereal and flying units are a big change. Other ideas - Speedy Units, Units not affected by certain magics, Units with high regeneration, ect...

A few other tips from experience...

Try to keep it somewhat short and sweet per round and per game. Having rediculously long rounds leads to boredom... Having rediculously long games leads to boredom... I wouldnt go over a minute per round goal... If you want to have a big playable area you can also increase the running speed of the units.

Make lives valuable. Pretty simple but don't have a map where there are like 200 lives and leaks are expected... Make a map where each life is precious and need to be saved for later in the game, it keeps people more excited throughout the game.

In-Game Options and Difficulty Settings. If you can find a way to set this up either individually or by the host... you should... because it really adds to the experience.

The little things in life make the difference. Try to have a clean GUI, good grammar and spelling, good color contrast. The towers should have all have tooltips that have a clear pattern, are consise, and tell the Damage/Delay/Range and target types attacked. Keep the creep and tower models unique, but not flamboyant. Nothing too big, overtinted, and keeps effects to a minimum while still being 'cool'.

Holy Crap that was long as shiz but I was bored so yeah... well next time your in the mood for a good novel you got something to read =P

Holy crap long post... Holy crap short post for me... Ugh spam...

something original....not the ordinary td im tired of those. if your going to make it team make it so the players have to help eachother to win not just build alone and hope to not leak. dont just change the shape of the td and call it original. i dont have many ideas for original things because i used them on my td but good luck to you and i hope to see some new things out there