Need *Constructive* comments for new TD

I decided to start working on a new map, a tower defense in fact, however I'm trying to bring something new to the table (if that is at all possible)...

I would really appreciate it if people could look at the design I've come up with thus far, and give me some constructive feedback or maybe suggest additional features or other improvements.

LOMTD: Lords of Magic Tower Defense
LOMTD is a team-based tower defense map that focuses on providing a layered and complex gameplay experience.

Features

• Can be played with 1 to 11 players.
• Towers can level up as the game progresses.
• Selectable difficulty levels.
• Strategic selection and placement of towers is promoted.
• Orignal gameplay elements.

Gameplay
In LOMTD, players may choose one of eight faiths: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Order, Chaos, Life, Death. Each faith has it's own unique set of towers, with their own unique abilities. Players build towers in a strategic pattern of their making to defeat increasingly stronger waves of enemies.

Victory and Defeat
Players win the game by surviving all levels. Players lose by running out of lives, due to "leaks". Leaks are enemies that the players were unable to stop from reaching their destination.

Followers
Every time something is constructed, it will require a number of followers. A follower has pledged themself to the faith they follow, and so can be tasked to do various things.

The tasks that can followers can be assigned to include:

• Creating towers.
• Producing Resources.
• Upgrading town buildings.

Followers are gained each round, the number being based on several factors including how much Fame the player has, whether the player's Great Temple has been reclaimed, and if the player leaked any enemies the previous round.

Resources
LOMTD differs greatly from other tower defense maps. Players do not recieve specific bonuses per kill. Instead, all players recieve a scaling reward for surviving each level. When no units are leaked, a greater reward is recieved. Each leak reduces the reward gained (for all players).

Types of Resources
Rather than using just gold or gold and lumber, LOMTD, like the Lords of Magic game it is based on, uses 4 distinct resources. They are:

• Ale
• Crystal
• Fame
• Gold

Some faiths use more of one kind of resource than another. For example, Death has a high reliance on Crystal, while Earth and Order use more Ale.

Production of Resources
To produce resources, a player needs to assign a number of followers to work in that player's stronghold, in one of four areas:

• Tavern - produces Ale.
• Temple - produces Crystal.
• Magistrate - produces Fame.
• Market - produces Gold.

Each follower assigned to a production task will generate one of that kind of resource per round.

Towers
Although the towers for each faith are unique, each tower fills a specific role. The roles are:

• Scout - Basic weak tower used mainly at the beginning of the game.
• Creature - Stronger tower with higher upkeep, but does not level up.
• Missile - Specializes in ranged attacking.
• Cavalry - Has a medium range attack and melee attack.
• Infantry - Same as Cavalry, but with emphasis on speed not damage.
• Thief - Ranged Champion.
• Warrior - Melee Champion.
• Mage - Spellcasting Champion.
• Great Creature - Summoned tower, very strong, but does not level up.
• Legendary Creature - Strongest tower of the faith, abilities vary greatly with each faith. Only one Legendary Creature can be summoned for each faith, per game.

Well, for one... Wrong board. You want Map / Campaign Projects.

Otherwise, this looks pretty cool... Although 4 resources may be a lot to handle.

This map will intentionally have a rather steep learning curve. I felt that keeping things simple leads to boring unoriginal maps with very little replayability.

Also, sorry for posting in the wrong forum, can a mod move this please? Thanks.

From the first glance it unfortunately looks like a simple td with leveling towers, 4 resources, and the sort of variety of towers elemental td does. Nothing too new but if you apply these aspects properly it could be great.

I recently played a few games of a new tower defense with towers that level. Basically it really didn't change the game much, the levels just allowed access to more towers (when you had a certain number at final level from a certain rank) and the change from level to level was near to nothing. It made the game pretty simple and all we do is mass towers and sit around upgrading buildings (with abilities). If you put the leveling idea in your map don't do what this map did, try to make it require more thought process.

Same goes with the resources, maybe they can serve more of a purpose then just building towers.

Well, I hope to make it more than just "a simple td", although i haven't yet seen any TD that uses 4 different resources...

Also, as I mentioned before, learning curve is of low importance to this particular project. I want to see how much fun and challenging gameplay can be provided by the TD genre, and dumbing everything down so the average battle.net player can pick it up easily is mutually exclusive to making fun and challenging gameplay.

Don't you think you could reduce the number of resources to 3 - you could use Gold/Wood/Food (renamed propertly) then. Having to go to some menu to get your amount of resources you have could be pretty confusing.

With the food thing, you could make a Tower Capacity, eaching tower costs one point out of a total. This way, it'd force players to renew their towers. In reality, it's hard to govern 50+ buildings with only person running everything; it's not you can hire people to do it for you.

Unless...

You can probably also make something as a Priority List for towers. It's a little like a aid, or AI ally that will do somethings for you. A tower will attack a certain target if it can fill the desired conditions. For example, a tower, once a valid target is found, will always attack creeps with less then 20% of their max health above all other creeps, or attack stunned creeps, or something. And, if the conditions are not filled, it moves down to the next condition on the priority list, or it will attack creeps indifferently (which is probably always on the bottom of all priority lists).

This kind of takes the work load off the player, but they have time to adjust priority lists to their liking. Probably too complicated and not needed, but it's just an idea.

Another one that I've thought of is not only having a tower defense, but a smaller portion of the map that is like playing a mini-AoS. Not only do we guard off creeps with towers, but they're coming from elsewhere, too!

Well, TD's succeed because of their simplicity and mass killing/bounty( PS: + short learning curves). It looks like your taking away the simplicity, making it tedious, and less killing.

So what makes it fun?

It's very possible.

How bout incorporating your production buildings into the defense system, such that they have to get kills to get larger production amounts but they are slightly weaker so you need to place them well to get better killing potential for it.

Well one of the main objectives of this map (Which you guys seem to be missing/forgetting) is that its based off of the Lords of Magic game. If I make all the changes (4 resources -> 3, etc) you guys are suggesting, it would not even resemble Lords of Magic in the slightest, thus nullifying the entire concept and background of the map.

However i do like the idea about being able to control targeting on towers. It could be done relatively easily by adding like 3 buttons on the tower's card, "Attack Stronger Creeps", "Attack Weaker Creeps", "Attack Nearest", or something similar.

Making such AI is not as simple as you are saying. I was trying to do something like this and I encountered one main problem: when to decide which creep to attack - I found that the best moment is on event "Unit attacks". But there is the trouble: if you reorder the tower to attack any other target than it is attacking, it attacks the new target as expected, but it doesn't play the "attack" animation - it plays "stand" instead. It is okaty with arrow towers as they don't have any visible animation, but it is really werid with any non-structure units.

The decision which target to attack is pretty simple -just serveral conditions and loops (maybe ForGroups). You just must pay attention on optimization here.

BTW, what is Lords of Magic?

I like the ai options for towers, but why not make it a researchable extra, such that it makes all towers smarter and multifunctional. So an aoe on normal mode will tend to attack groups of units, and damage towers attack the unit furthest ahead on the path etc.

...slowly. I've been splitting my time up between several different projects, and this one finally got some attention. I've got a basic resource system implemented. There are actually five resources, four of which are used for spending.

Faith reliances - Different faiths use resources differently. Some faiths require more crystal than ale or gold, for example.

Ale - A normal resource used for construction and training. Primary resource of Order, Chaos, and Earth. Ale is produced by assigning followers to the Tavern in the Capital, or by taking control of Breweries.
Crystal - A normal resource used for construction and training. Primary resource of Death and Air. Crystal is produced by assigning followers to the Temple in the Capital, or by taking control of Crystal Caverns.
Gold - A normal resource used for construction and training. Primary resource of Life, Water, and Fire. Gold is produced by assigning followers to the Market in the Capital, or by taking control of Gold Mines.

Fame - Influences various gameplay aspects like what towers are available to the player, and how many followers arrive each turn. Fame is not spent, but can be lost by certain types of failure. Fame is earned by success, like completing a turn without leaking, and extra fame can be earned by catching another player's leaks, or by defeating particularly tough opponents. Fame is generated by Statues (more about these later), or by assigning followers to the Magistrate in the Capital.

Followers - Determines how many towers or upgrades the player can build. Each tower requires a follower in addition to other resources, and upgrades can require several followers. Unused followers can be assigned in the stronghold to produce resources each turn. Followers are generated each turn based on your fame, and additional followers may gather to your faith if you gained a large amount of fame the previous turn.

I understand this seems like a complex system, but I believe the novelty of it, combined with ample instructions within the game should make it understandable for new players. Also, it is pretty common knowledge that nobody can be perfectly successful at any map their first, second, or even third time around.

Why is this in the general development?