Universal Block Fortress - (by Foursaken Media)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Echoseven, Mar 6, 2013.

  1. Cooler King

    Cooler King Well-Known Member

    Mar 11, 2013
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    Okay I just tried my second strategy to deal with shadows, and it severely breaks the game. Forward this to Foursaken because it will ruin things if not fixed. Not even going to detail it, it's that bad I feel.
     
  2. Mrdoller

    Mrdoller Active Member

    Mar 17, 2013
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    Meh, is it the old "get shadows to circle aimlessly" glitch again? I'm currently in financial trouble, as I'm trying to juggle buying drills and mines with buying walls... Also your strategy seems to require a super lucky map generate with a completely surrounded valley... I'm in a valley surrounded on 2 sides, and one of the sides is just the ocean (on jungle), and I keep losing lasers on that side. With the tower strategy, I probably had double the number of drills and mineshafts by now... Maybe it will be more optimal later on.
     
  3. Cooler King

    Cooler King Well-Known Member

    Mar 11, 2013
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    No it has nothing to do with the way enemies path, actually it has nothing to do with the enemies at all. This was something that I have not seen mention of yet and has the potential to ruin the leaderboards (more than hackers have done already).
     
  4. Sambobsung

    Sambobsung Well-Known Member

    May 19, 2012
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    I really hope Foursaken implements an advanced display to tell you what you lost after each round. Or tells you if you've lost a turret mid-game.
     
  5. Elixir

    Elixir Well-Known Member

    Mar 12, 2013
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    Canada.
    Not to sound root, or I may be wrong, but Foursaken seems to have went on vacatio... App has dropped to about 37 in charts now..
     
  6. Sambobsung

    Sambobsung Well-Known Member

    May 19, 2012
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    They are hopefully and probably working on some new updates for Block fortress and Heroes and Castles.
     
  7. Foursaken_Media

    Foursaken_Media Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    Vacation... whats that? :p We're just at GDC for the week, so have been a bit busy.

    The next update has already been submitted (a few days ago), which fixes a ton of things. Here is the change-log:

    Version 1.1

    added a system to upload and share bases in sandbox mode
    added a new motion sensor block that can detect shadows
    added a flat plains terrain location
    you can now build terrain blocks in sandbox mode
    you can now toggle day and night in sandbox mode
    fixed a crash that would happen every time a land mine or depth charge exploded
    fixed an exploit that could make shadows wander around indefinitely without attacking
    added a link in the “Guide” section to the official IGN wiki - check it out, add your tips and strategies, and promote your uploaded fortresses!
    enemies now drop multiple coins based on the size of their reward (every coin is equal to up to 5 gold, so an enemy that rewards 20 gold will drop 4 coins)
    increased the time enemy coins persist before they disappear
    greatly increased the block and enemy selection distance when in FPS mode
    fixed a bug that would cause stats to be adjusted incorrectly when some mods were removed
    fixed some inaccurate mod descriptions
    changed the R.O.F. mod on heavy plasma to a reload mod
    you can now hold down the up and down arrows to continuously fly up and down
    swapped the inverse look options (so they control the correct camera rotations now)
    tweaked the icon
    fixed a bug where some enemies would still be alive when in build mode
    and some other stuff :p
     
  8. Cooler King

    Cooler King Well-Known Member

    Mar 11, 2013
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    The motion sensor is exactly what I was hoping for as a solution for shadows!
     
  9. dwerny

    dwerny Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    Awesome! Thanks Foursaken!
     
  10. Goblock

    Goblock Member

    Mar 26, 2013
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    This is my optimal strategy at the moment.

    The barracks and enough mineshafts and drills to produce 109m/turn from bare rock are in the base of the structure, and the turrets are all mounted on the mushroom bit above it, with a large ring of howitzers (4x AOE, 5x ROF, 1x detector) on the underside that gives each turret an unobstructed line of fire for almost the entire map, some side-mounted howitzers to cover the area directly beneath the mushroom structure, and on top are a power block (3x range) and power boosters (3x power), 34 MIRVS (6x AOE, 2x damage, 1x ROF, 1x detector) and 10 orbital laser blocks (9x damage, 1x detector).

    There are tall stacks of blocks near the edges of the map that serve to distract disintegrator Goblocks, who'll stand around and fire at the stacks, taking out a single wall block per shot, instead of taking out my turrets.

    The design is inherently shadow-proof (at least until the next update), but even if it wasn't, the MIRVs take out something like 80% of the shadows by obliterating entire sections of the map, and the remainder are easy to mop up. The rest of the enemy troops never do any damage, except for about 3-8 wall blocks per turn that they destroy in the decoy stacks. I've also got a big pile of surplus minerals and gold that I can put into expanding my defences when I need to.

    Unfortunately, this build makes the game extremely dull. Hopefully things will get rebalanced soon so that this strategy doesn't dominate everything else, since at the moment I have to make the painful choice between playing optimally and having a dull game that drags on until I get bored or deliberately playing sub-optimally and having a game that's more interesting, but that leaves me feeling frustrated that I have to hold back and play dumb. Ideally, I'd like to be able to throw everything I have into the fight and still be crushed within a reasonable timeframe, and also to have multiple approaches that suit different situations, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution that makes every game the same.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. Goblock

    Goblock Member

    Mar 26, 2013
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    I'd like the ability to create new profiles, so that I can start a fresh character at level 1 again with limited health and no mods, but keep things unlocked so that I don't have to level up just to be able to build more than the absolute basics again.

    How about some challenge modes, with associated achievements and leaderboards? Things like a mode where you always start with a level 1 character and no mods, or where it's always night time and detector mods don't work, or you only get attacked by melee units (with boosted stats and things like squads of giants so that it isn't easier than normal mode, but favours different strategies), or only ranged units, or can't upgrade the barracks, or have various restrictions on what you can build (mortars and machine guns only mode, no turrets with AOE mode etc).

    Also, maybe put a level cap on players before they start ending up with 10,000HP? It would be easier to put in place sooner rather than later, before there are a whole bunch of players with really high levels that would be annoyed by a cap being introduced and wiping out their progress, and it would avoid the inevitable problem of players becoming nigh-invulnerable over time and messing up the game balance. Already, the only time I've felt in any way vulnerable since passing level 100 was when a squad of 4 or 5 disintegrators all shot me at the same time and reduced me to a 'mere' 450HP.
     
  12. Sambobsung

    Sambobsung Well-Known Member

    May 19, 2012
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    Well I hope the challenges prove to be difficult and allow you to think. I hope that if they add challenges you get a reward. But only for the first time you complete it. Well you could add a whole set of new achievements if that were to happen.
     
  13. Cooler King

    Cooler King Well-Known Member

    Mar 11, 2013
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    I wish there was a way to turn down the smoke and particle effects, my device is really lagging out now at wave 150.
     
  14. Goblock

    Goblock Member

    Mar 26, 2013
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    I'm having the same problem; I get down to about 3fps when my MIRVpocalypse goes off in my face, which is problematic when I'm engaging mobs at close range (which I almost always do to gather coins).

    Most TD games have a way to upgrade turrets to reduce the need to spam obscene numbers of them. In block fortress, the crafting system could modify the base stats of each turret, and then they could be further improved by a per-map upgrade system that works like the barracks upgrades (click on turret, click 'upgrade' for x gold and y minerals for a turret with twice the damage at twice the cost), or through tech buildings (pay x gold and y minerals to boost the damage on all lasers by 25%).
     
  15. dwerny

    dwerny Well-Known Member

    May 9, 2012
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    I agree, there are moments when the game lags for a moment while the device tries to display everything it needs to. I'm not a programmer so I don't know how you optimize that, but it would be cool if they did.

    Looking forward to seeing some great bases with the new sharing feature.

    I was also thinking it would be cool to have "door" blocks, or blocks that you could walk trough but enemies could not.

    That or a drawbridge would be sweet.
     
  16. Goblock

    Goblock Member

    Mar 26, 2013
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    The game seems to lag less from the plasma rifle since the last update; I don't know if that got optimised or if I just got used to it. My first computer loaded things from a tape deck, and I'm constantly amazed to see graphics like these on a mobile device, but it's pushing the limit of what my Ipad 2 can handle. Anyone else hoping for a PC port?
     
  17. Doelago

    Doelago Active Member

    Feb 13, 2013
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    I would love it if this was ported to the PC/Mac. I would also love multiplayer...

    Whilst it plays well on my iPad 4th gen I do get some frame rate drops in the midst of my MIRVpocalypse set up of absolute doom, death and destruction.
     
  18. Goblock

    Goblock Member

    Mar 26, 2013
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    I could see this game becoming a classic that people would still be playing a decade from now if ported beyond iOS, and if it was also rebalanced and significantly expanded. It's got a beta feel to it at the moment; lots of potential, but not really finished yet, with lots of work still to be done to get it to where it could eventually be, and various issues that will severely limit it's long-term appeal unless they're dealt with (like the game becoming a boring grind at high levels, fps death and the one-strategy-to-rule-them-all lighthouse of Mordor effect where a big central tower with long-range weapons has a huge advantage over all other approaches).
     
  19. iJay

    iJay Well-Known Member

    Jan 11, 2011
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    Loving the game. Congrats on the success Foursaken.

    A few exploits I've found:
    1. You can reposition your barracks.
    2. You can place any block, turret, or special object in water.
    3. You can make yourself invincible.
    4. You can make shadows endlessly circle.
    5. A game breaking exploit that won't be mentioned.

    Obviously number 4 is well known, but I thought it was supposed to be fixed in 1.0.1...? I didn't even do it intentionally the first time.

    Number 5 is likely the exploit that Cooler King found. Let's just say it has something to do with a mod that costs the same amount of each rare mineral...
     
  20. Sambobsung

    Sambobsung Well-Known Member

    May 19, 2012
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    Is number 2 really an exploit?
     

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