Well, looking forward for the update. This game is becoming like the classic DooM for me. I can come back over and over again. I don’t even want to know how many times I’ve repeated the entire campaign.
I replayed the doom campaign fairly recently with the brutal doom mod - very impressive work. I used to have nightmares playing that game as a kid! We had a couple of computers in the house that my dad used to hook up via a printer cable so we could play the campaign multiplayer. At the moment we are considering: Locking both nightmare and survival until the campaign is completed Removing elite spawns from hard mode and instead saving them for nightmare and survival The expanded research menu and upgrades will broaden the gap between a new player with zero unlocks and a maxed out player with full unlocks significantly. Nightmare and survival will be tailored towards players who have unlocked most research. Normal and hard mode will be for players playing for the first time and can choose whether they want a fairly easy run (normal) or a challenge (hard). Survival will function the same as it does now except I'll be making a few tweaks to the waves and there will be new spawns + extra tower platform locations to unlock. Nightmare mode will be an opportunity to replay the campaign with most or all research unlocked. I suspect by the time most players have completed the campaign or normal or hard they will have about 60-80% of the research menu unlocked depending on skill level. Nightmare additions will include: All monsters have a slightly higher health pool and deal more damage Semi-random elite spawns when certain conditions are met Additional portals that spawns group of elite monsters of the same type (This will be scripted so you can learn and adapt) Additional tower platforms can be built so you've got more firepower to deal the bigger threats Slightly reduced time between waves It's likely reinforced flesh and demon flesh will see a slight buff to their base health pool due to the research system overhaul and elite monsters even more so.
At the moment it's still to be decided on how exactly players who have progressed will be impacted. It could be either: Players will retain their level but still have to grind out to the max level (around 30 now to get all tech points although this could change) Players level will be calculated based on their XP so in your case you would be bumped up to the experience level that corresponds with your XP accumulated. Initially I was leaning to the first option but now I'm thinking the second as if I had accumulated 3 million xp I might be a bit annoyed that I had a lot of that wiped out and had to regrind to get to the rest of the unlocks. Which option do you prefer the sound of? Also for both options your research would be reset and you would get the tech points that correspond with your level so you can basically choose new upgrades as the changes and additions are fairly significant.
To be honest I am ok with either way, but maybe option 1? I enjoy unlocking part as well, since I can feel the differences with each unlock. I will have everything unlocked in a day anyways.
I think if it's a step backwards then that's a no-no (aka losing functionality I already have). If it's a step forward then either option 1 or 2 would be fine. Either way, probably shouldn't be deciding based on players who have already completed the game on hard!
By the way, remember that I said that drone rockets seem to be hitting meat clouds? I still feel that rockets do damage them somehow. When I checked myself, I was trying to hit a meat cloud while it’s on its way to the command center, so that I can isolate the command center turret damage, but couldn’t do any damage to the meat cloud. I felt like a meat cloud’s health went down quite fast on Asteroid today, when there were only the comm center turret and a level 2 MG shooting at it (the meat cloud went down in about 10 secs). Conditions were that a shield was active, and the meat cloud was attacking the base. I didn’t aim at a particular spot. Well, I can’t really because my thumb is bigger than a meat cloud.
Neither of those two options will result in loss of progress. Option 1 would retain your current progress based on your experience level so you would still be level 15 and need to hit max to unlock all tech points. Option 2 would retain your experience points and bump your level to that which corresponds with the total experience points you've accumulated which would in some cases bump players who have been fairly active to either the new max level or somewhere near.
So level 15 would retain all the unlocks I already have, or would those now be spread out over more levels? As long as it's the former, then I think it's fine.
The upcoming changes to the research menu are fairly substantial. Not only will there be a lot more upgrades but also the way the research system works will also change. For this reason it would be impossible to keep your upgrades as they are now so instead when you launch the game after the update you will have your research upgrades reset and be awarded tech points that correspond with your level or experience points accumulated (depending on which route we go down). This is an example of how it might work (the specifics are yet be determined so I'm just using this as a demonstration). If we took option A and you launched the game after the update you would still be level 15. All of the research you unlocked previously would be wiped clean and you would instead have the tech points that correspond with your level to spend on the new upgrade menu. At level 15 that might get you about 50% of the new upgrades unlocked assuming the new level cap was 30. It's also possible we could extend the level cap but stop awarding tech points beyond 30 as well. Does that make sense? In terms of progress, nothing will be lost. If you've completed the game on normal or hard already then you will automatically have unlocked nightmare and survival. This update will create a wider gap between a new player and a fully researched player so in the new update normal / hard will be for players experiencing the campaign for the first time. Once they have completed all maps on normal or hard they will unlock the end game modes nightmare and survival which are designed for replay and will be challenging even with everything unlocked. We've had a fair bit of feedback from players saying they would like more progression which is the focus of this update (research expansion, new game mode etc).
Um... I fired a charged attack of a nuclear howitzer against an elite meat cloud and it instantly died. I know that residual smoke do damage air units, but are howitzer impacts supposed to do the same?
Air units do take a small amount of area of effect damage from artillery explosions but an elite meat cloud should certainly not die instantly. Will need to test this one out. The meat cloud HP is significantly higher than the collective damage dealt by the uranium barrage. What map was this on? And are you sure you didn't have other turrets that could have been hitting it at the same time or moments before (multiple MGT rockets)?
It was on Mars, and I am quite sure the meat cloud was almost full health and had no other turrets around it that could take it down so quick. Also, were you able to reproduce the drone rockets hitting a meat cloud? It is fairly easy and consistent.
I replayed Mars and it wasn’t the nuke charged attack that killed the elite meat cloud, but it was the game that considered I won the map before my turrets killing the meat cloud. It died along with zombies.
I beat the game on normal. Overall pretty good. It doesn't reinvent the wheel and kingdom rush is still my favorite td game, but I enjoyed my time with it. There are a few annoying things I would patch out.: When deploying the initial turret setup, you should skip the long animation. Quite often I would build turrets, quickly starting the first wave and realize it takes time to build it. During gameplay it makes sense, but during setup it should be instant. Sometimes when turrets are near screen border and I want to upgrade them, the button is behind the ui. Do a x2 or x4 button. The missile ship is kinda annoying. It takes too long to spam the rockets and I can't opt out of it to do something else.
Hi Jstorm, The rockets are indeed hitting the meat cloud. Because of it's physical size it gets caught in the AOE. This will be fixed in the next update. Regarding the meat cloud elite death - thank you for this information I think I know what might be going on there!
Hi Kozz - Glad to hear you enjoyed the campaign and thank you for the feedback. Regarding the tutorial / turret building part. This is a good suggestions and I will make a note to see if we can make the build sequence faster at this point. I have an idea for it actually. Regarding the UI / edge of the map issue. Can you remember which map this was? Regarding 2x/4x - Did you know you can start waves early to pick up the pace? Feedback noted on the drone. You can disengage from the drone rockets by pressing the rocket firing button again but we could look at a way to make this clearer.
