Here’s the last patch before the Steam release (promise!)… I was going to leave it where it was but a couple of things were bothering me, which were the ease with which levels were unbalanced by having infinite numbers of very powerful buildings, and also a performance problem specifically when the droid factory was used too much. One thing led to another, and I ended up changing rather a lot of things in small but significant ways, in the v1.80.8 patch of Revenge of the Titans. No, I haven’t quite got around to the Webstart version which is still broken (why the hell is anyone still using it? Webstart is rubbish!)
Humble Bundlers will have to wait a bit, as per usual, for the Tweet of Rosen.
The following things have been done:
Bugs Fixed
- Fixed: item descriptions in HUD a bit wrong
- Fixed: central spawners appearing too close to base
- Fixed: survival mode picked up research from the wrong level
Balance
- Buffed droid factories now cost $1500
- Droid factory now produces max of 6 droids, plus 1 per reactor (before, they would just churn out a max of 10 x number of factories)
- Sergeant droids produced slightly less frequently when factories buffed by reactors (eg. 1 in 10 droids is a sergeant on a 4-reactor factory)
- More gidlets spawned when player is using droids!
- Decoys only produced at a rate of 1 per level
- Shield generators only available at a rate of 1 per level also; price now fixed at $2500
- Droid factory and heavy weapons now available only in limited quantities (1 per level), balanced by hoarding
- Less mines and barricades and tangleweb available per level – balanced by hoarding
- The various limited-production buildings now have various limited maximums
New Features and Enhancements
- Tangled gidrahs warn other gidrahs when they’re killed
- Unused buildings/barricades/mines etc. are hoarded for the next level, up to various limited maximums
- “Reinforcements” (extra buildings) arrive in Survival mode when bosses are spawned
Internal
- Default sleep=true on single core systems
- Reduced sound streaming thread delay to 1ms from 8ms and increased priority; increased streaming buffer count
Analysis
The main thing you will notice is that cool things are suddenly a bit scarce. All those lovely heavy weapons, and the droid factory, shield generator and decoys, they’re all now only created at a rate of 1 per level. And barricades and mines are suddenly, literally, a lot more thin on the ground.
Balancing this out, anything you don’t use is hoarded for the next level. As in, not used at all; not recycled. So you can, if possible, not use your laser capabilities for 3 levels, then have a level with 3 laser cannon on it. Similar with droid factories – hoard ’em up if you don’t really need them. Maybe you don’t need mines one level? Great – save them for a fireworks extravaganza!
It remains to be seen how this affects the general balance of play, but it’s added a crafty little dimension of thoughtful resource management to the game, which I quite like, and it’s more or less independent of difficulty. It also means those buildings are pretty precious now even if you’ve got tons of cash, because you can’t just plonk down a replacement if it gets eaten by ravening monsters.
No Prizes
Bah, once again we didn’t win anything or get noticed by the cognoscenti. What we need is an army of rabid fans to hound judges of such competitions. I thought we did rather well with Revenge, especially in the, you know, gameplay, graphics, sound and music stakes, and put years of effort into making it perfect… grumble, moan, etc.
Right, that’s enough whining. I can’t wait to see the back of it! We’ve got a new game to write.
Slightly radical game changes there – guess I’ll have to rethink my strategies.
Oh, and awards – do you really need them? You’ve made a fantastic game – no need for validation via shiny things that’ll just gather dust!
Heh, it’s not about validation, it’s about piles of press coverage and lots of sales!
As SpinalJack said – in this regard you definately were robbed; that’s the reason why I tend to think that these ‘award’ things are a pit pointless and self-congratulatory…. something ALREADY big & well known like Minecraft was gonna get top spot whereas a game like RotT gets completely overlooked….. grrrr
Anyway, I’m sure that Steam will help with generating more sales for you guys, so I wish you well with that!
…and I’m a little bit concerned that perhaps you’ve been a bit too mean regarding the scarcity of tech usage, but I’ll have a playthrough first… maybe it will make the game MORE strategic, and hopefully without alienating too many players who’ll give up in frustration.
You woz robbed! but then minecraft couldn’t not have won, it was a given. Better luck next time eh?
(Actually, we never entered anything because… in the words of the Desktop Dungeons guys, “cause, you know. Minecraft.”)
You could always have gone for the audience award if you mobilised your more rabid fans
Oh no, how am I supposed to live without my beloved disruptor walloffs…
Seriously though, it looks like you’re making this game harder and harder one step per update. And this “only one somewhat helpful building per level” rule is another big step in this direction. I guess at first this will force the player to spam cheap turrets, utility of which becomes questionable very quickly when gids come to play. And this in turn will force him to consider different hoarding opportunities (which is the whole point, i guess?), as if research decisions weren’t already hard enough.
Or maybe I just suck at this game and everything is actually real easy ‘n fun.
You can still make a disruptor walloff … it’ll just take a few levels of hoarding. In the meantime you’ll want to use a different strategy. If you’ve got several things going, you’ll be able to change strategies every level… which is exactly what I want 🙂
There were quite a few people moaning that once you get a pattern worked out that every level largely becomes the same, and that won’t do at all. So now it changes! Which should hopefully make it more engaging, possibly a smidgen more difficult, but ultimately a little deeper I hope.
Of course if the blog burns down in flames I may reconsider some of the limits and such… it’s the first cut on this idea after all, and they usually take a few iterations to tune…
Can’t wait for it to be on steam. Good luck!
Hmmm… I’m a little iffy on the limitations (thought money did that). I think I’ll wait and play 1.80.7 instead, cause ain’t nobody gonna take away my droids >:)!
One of the chief reasons for the change was droids causing a massive performance problem… with unlimited droid factories there could be hundreds of droids all over the place, and I couldn’t see a reasonable way of capping the droids that made good game sense. But the fancy building limits did make sense, like barricades and such. The hoarding mechanism should produce some really good strategical agonizing I hope.
Yes, you’re right about performance, but having hundreds of droids blasting away looks really cool.
Can’t for RoTT on Steam!
You can still have 50 droids blasting away 🙂
Can you *please* stop throwing surprise bouts of “balancing” at us?
I dont recall anybody complaining that the game is super easy, and yet you keep making it harder and harder. Why are you so hellbent on limiting all the weapons people like to use?
All the cool things we like to use? yeah we dont use them only because it makes the game “easy”, it makes the game FUN too.
Sorry that I’m being pissy, but you do this alot and totally without warning or a community want/need for it to happen.
Droids were just getting cool too.
Don’t panic! Just give it a go, give us some feedback. And don’t forget it’s not all about campaign mode – Survival mode is the ultimate challenge in this game.
I will probably give it a shot when it becomes available, but I am definitely keeping the installer for 1.87 around.
Limiting what we can do for the sake of limitation alone is not a meaningful way to make the game harder or more strategic. If anything it promotes less variety and viable styles of game-play(such as those of us who used droids as a main line of defense and offense). I dont want to have to get used to maining dull blasters because everything else is now more or less a “special” item that would be wise to hoard. That kind of artificial rarity makes using the tech that *should* be fun more frustrating than rewarding.
And your right that it’s not all about campaign, but campaign is still a significant chunk of the game(and needed to unlock tech) that in all likely-hood just got alot less fun to play (at least for me).
Damn what else can I say.
Good luck with the steam release.
“If anything it promotes less variety and viable styles of game-play(such as those of us who used droids as a main line of defense and offense).”
Well said! That’s the core of my problem with the new approach.
Now… I must say that the problem behind that might actually be that I’m used to playing games at “normal difficulty” (whatever that may mean for said game), completing, and then playing through again at higher difficulty levels. Since you start off at “highest difficulty”, my expectations may be a bit skewed. I enjoyed 1.80.7 a lot more than previous builds, but that might be because it was fundamentally easier.
I’ll give 1.80.8 a try, once the HIB version is available, but I suspect I’ll be reverting quickly to 1.80.7. We’ll see.
Sylen does have a point there!
Btw Cas, (stupidly) forgot to mention this earlier on, but here’s one idea regarding droids/droid factories – why not just implement a change so that droid production actually COSTS; not sure exactly what amount each type of droid should be, but this might be a way to stave off overuse/over-reliance of droid factories…. similar to what you mentioned regarding those ‘tanks’ costing $50 each…..whaddaya say?!?!?!?!? 😉
Sorry, I meant overuse/over-reliance in terms of how it negatively affects system performance (particularly on older setups)
I like this idea… and I’ve already thought of it 😉 The forthcoming Tank Factory building does just that. Well, it will do, when it’s ready. I suppose I could apply it to droids but it’s one of the main attractions of droids – and endless supply of free but small mobile guns.
…but their not *really* endlessly free though – not now with the new implementation anyway, now their slightly limited….
anyway, a nominal sum wouldnt hurt, and I’m sure other players would prefer to have to ‘pay’ for each droid produced, rather than having a limit imposed on them for the number of droid factories available….
Benefits of this over the current iteration –
1) it’d increase the reason for players to make sure they’ve got some cash in the bank/are mining crystals – knock on effect would be that players might think twice about turret positions/strategy etc, and it’d give players even more incentive to get the refinery buffs asap, as if they needed incentive in the first place 😉
2) the droids would gain ‘value’ to the player, rather than just being purely disposable
3) Players wouldnt be unfairly penalized for apparent overuse, except financially!
4) As the droids are fairly fragile, having to pay for each one produced would mean players would perhaps be more strategic with droid factory placement, instead of just spamming all together.
5) DROIDS ARE COOL (one of my favourite techs, although I think those tanks will come in close too when we finally get them!) – you really don’t want to discourage players from using them…
It seems to only really be in survival/endless mode that theres a performance issue (dependant on a players computer specs) because of the on-going nature of those game modes. Perhaps an additional way to address this that would be fairest to the broadest possible spectrum of hardware specs would be that each droid perhaps has a limited ‘life/battery’ supply before breaking down? This would be a way to ‘cap’ the number of droids onscreen without penalising players…. just a though 🙂
It didn’t even occur to me during my rant, but is Endless mode also affected by tech limits?
Is the Mac build still cached, or is it showing the wrong build number on the launch screen? I’m still seeing 1.80.7.
Keep trying, it’s there.
Hey first wanted to say sorry about IGF, that’s some tough luck. anyway..
Gonna start off with I am a huge fan of ROTT but I’m not loving the new changes.I understand the Nerf/Buff concept
but effectively eliminating the players ability to use what I have to say are some of the most fun strategies is a step in the wrong direction. I personally felt that with the addition of the new droids, droid factories were becoming useful (arguably overpowered) The new changes of artificially limiting a players ability to build heavy weapons infringes on the players ability to immerse themselves in the game because it is so arbitrary a rule with no justification, in fact it reminds me of the dark days when I was forced to mine crystals as fast as I could because the enemy wouldn’t stop coming until all the crystals are gone. I would call the changes less of a “nerf” and more of a shotgun to the head of some of my favorite buildings.
Well… it’s “early days” yet on this feature. Depending on how much hate it receives it’s likely to be tuned, or maybe changed a little. The main changes I foresee are increasing the production rate between levels to, say, 3 units instead of 1, which on reflection, would have been more sensible… as for mines/barricades, they’re pretty much as balanced as they always were though, and I think I’ve got that bit right. There is definitely some justification for the change though, in that the heavy weapons are very, very powerful, and can rapidly degenerate the game into a fairly dull and repetitive pattern. If every day were Christmas and all that.
Interesting factoid: I’ve never actually used the heavy weapons in one of my long playtests except to check that they work after fiddling with them! I’ve always just relied on blasters and shotguns, and lots of mines and barricades. And that’s got me all the way to Titan! But there we go – different strategies, etc, etc.
This may sound TOTALLY weird and may get me flamed or out right assaulted in the street, but I like the 1 Heavy Weapon per level.
Let me explain why before you rip all of my teeth out with a pair of pliers.
1. it kinda makes you consider were and how you want to use them or use them more as a “support” weapon eg. have a laser or a rocket launcher to support your “standard” turrets.
2. Finances. like in most other games heavy weapons are the most expensive and require lots of forthought to use effectively. lets face it the less you want to spend on heavy weapons for situations where you need them the more likely you will try to perserve them
2a. I like it that in survival we get a fresh batch of buildings for every boss encounter 🙂 i like that.
now I have to say there are cons
1. 1 a level means that yes if you use them badly, you will be without a heavy weapon for the rest of the level I still want to play the game through a couple of times and see if its really that much of a problem
2. other players may not have patience to play through it like that
so yeah my thoughts.
Imagine how I feel when I try changes out then 😉
Oh I know, you probably rack your brain about it.
Hmm, three has some potential, the only problem I see is on maps where they come from all sides where (for me at least) selling and moving turrets is important or I may have more then three sides of conflict. That being said I think you are on to something here, thanks for the response.
Aha! Looks like we’ve finally got some homage: a Flash game in development that bears a passing resemblance in style, form and function. I wish people would get in touch when they do stuff that looks this good – there’s money to be made in it!
Seems like you control the baddy in that game minding his own business when some idiot builds turrets in your way.
Looks interesting
“Anonymous asked: This game reminds me of Revenge of the Titans, is it inspired by that?
Never heard of it. ”
Seems similar, but according to this isn’t. Also, could you nudge Jeffrey about the new builds? I’m still waiting for them on HIB!
Have you ever considered shipping a .xml file that allows end users to tweak the various game parameters? You know, pricing, damage, range, etc.
Source is coming out in a few weeks 😉
The way i see it, there is one major flaw in this change: While i can see the reasoning behind wanting to limit heavy weapons, imposing an artificial limit is not a good way to do it. People have different likes and dislikes, wildly different definitions of fun, and this is artificially forcing them to use certain playstyles.
The best evidence for this are you yourself: You say you only use the Heavy weapons when you have to test them, only using Blasters till Titan – imagine a limitation on Blasters while none on the heavies, ~forcing~ you to use them. I would much more prefer balancing them with the pricetag, since money in the bank is already connected to the difficulty – either some heavies ore more blasters, or a mix – but leave the decision to the players.
Another tag-along problem, at least in my opinion, is the hoarding concept that comes with the limit: its already present in the powerups, and it leads me to the same result as it did in so many other games. I (subconsciencly) live spartanically the whole game to have it for the last boss/mission/ etc. In RoTT this meant having more than 15x Berzerk/Freeze/Smartbomb and all special powerups i had collected the whole game just for the last mission – While this is ok for powerups, not being ~allowed~ to use the turret(s) of choice for the bigger part of the game (in a mainly turret defense game) is frustrating and not-fun at best.
And putting another artificial limit on how much you can hoard just results in more player limitation too. (also, doesnt make much sense story wise, since whatever rare materials are being used as explanation for limiting HWs would be of largely insignificant Volumina compared to the thousands of metric tons of regular materials used in blasters and comprising the mainpart of the HWs)
Dont get me wrong, still love RoTT, but i think this is a big step into the wrong direction – i was attracted to RoTT because of the Techtree and consistent campaign in which I could decide which strategy to employ to fight against the Titans.
Perhaps leave the HWs as they were, but change some of the smaller titans / introduce one or two new kinds which cannot be targeted by HWs because of their sensor resolutions, only by Blasters/droids/tanks – same logic as with the micro titans. This would limit HWs aswell, because Blasters/factories would be neccessary to fight these medium sized titans, taking space and money – but having the player see the neccessity in this and having them consciously decide to build less HWs themselfes – food for thought.
Yeah, its spelled subconsciously, but english is not my native language and my brain was already busy creating that monster of a comment 😀
The more difficult a game is the better… nowadays at least. Most games are way too easy, and so totally boring for me. So, resist the whining users… 😉 there just were spoiled by today’s games where you are guaranteed to win.
Different… something that I find inconvenient in this game is the screen layout during the actual action:
(A) The bottom panel, although can be hidden with space, is quite annoying. It takes away too much from screen area that is already too small (see point B), and does it vertically asymmetrically. I wonder that, given it’s a straight top-down game and screens are wider than tall (especially nowadays), wouldn’t it be better if that panel is moved to the sides? (Also, it also should be smaller somewhat.) I wish the area where I see the map was nearly square, and there was a fixed side-strip for all those panels (and for a mini-map). Kind of like in Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3. Would fell much more ergonomic.
(B) I can only see about the 1/9th of the whole map at once, so I have to scroll around too often. Even if you consider 800×600 screens, it’s definitely possible to fit in more if the object are smaller (since they are quite big right now, especially for this art style where there is no much small details to see). Also, scrolling around by pushing the screen edges with the mouse is quite a struggle. There could be mini-map, kind of like in Photoshop (you know, where you see the miniature whole picture, see what part of it you are looking at, and can easily navigate in by dragging that view-port rectangle). Obviously that only works out if you have the side-strip reserved (again, see HOMM 1-3).
You can change the screen scale to see more of the map
How can I do that? (Unless it’s something totally obvious, and I’m blind, it’s still the defaults that count… people will play with the defaults.)
Commandline parameter scale=2.0 for example. Depending on your monitor resolution it’ll pick either 2.0 or 3.0 by default (the way it works is it divides the smallest axis by 320 and ditches the fraction). scale=1.0 will be extremely small and hard to see. Try 1.5 perhaps.
… or just scroll using WASD or the cursor keys of course. Use Q to zoom back to the base instantly, and E to look for unmined crystals.
Whoa there, I’m on a 2560×1440 monitor. Are you saying that my graphics have been scaled 4x all this time? I gotta try this new command-line param, if I can figure out how to enter it on OS X.
Blimey, it’s beautiful at scale=2. Though it’d be nice to specify a separate scale for the various menus and the in-game screen, the menus are tiny now.
When I’ve figured out how to do that, I’ll have a zoom feature on the scrollwheel anyway 🙂 It’s just architecturally a bit limited at the moment… being cobbled together from bits of 10 year old code and such.
…and you can use the keyboard to move around, instead of pushing the edge of the screen – try it, makes it SO EASY!
FYI – the BMT affiliate download link for Linux still points to the Webstart version. That’s one reason why people are still using Webstart. You might consider updating that link in BMT…
Thanks,
Troy Hepfner
My Game Company
Wow, radical changes there Cas…this steam release keeps looking farther and farther away! On paper, I’ve got mixed feelings about the changes, here’s why. On earth, in one game, I spent about 4 levels teching up to the Rocket launcher, this meant I was short on other things like heavy blasters and buffs…with a hard cap like that, this investment would feel like a waste. My concern then is that, while in late game, many strategies are available, in the early game they were not, due to the tech tree. This may make that portion of the game somewhat frustrating and limited. – I’ll try it out though and let you know how it goes. Maybe the cap isn’t a bad thing, but cap amounts may need to be tweaked.
Lastly, I was already feeling a pressure to try new things consistently in 1.80.7, since the stuff that I found OP on earth and moon started to not work as well on Mars and Saturn. I wound up feeling like only one strategy could work on certain levels. What if the droid rush strategy is really fun, so you use it when it’s not optimal, then a few levels down you find out that it’s necessary, but you can’t use it anymore unless you go back? Could make the campaign a bit frustrating.
These are all theories right now, so I’ll let you know how gameplay looks.
Also, get this game out already, and start playing with your (real) baby!
You do not need the rocket launcher early in the game. You don’t actually ever need it. Earth stages can be taken down with the first two blasters and some upgrades(scanner, cooling tower) and barricades easily.
I’m sure he is playing with his baby. This is part of his job and as such requires his attention. It’s not like he gets home, works on RotT until midnight then goes to sleep.
Actually I wake up, fiddle with Revenge all day, and then fiddle with Revenge all night until midnight. I eat, sleep, breathe and poo Revenge of the Titans, which is why I maybe make what appear to be strange choices to people only scratching the surface of the depths.
I stand corrected. I would have to agree with the problem being people are only scratching the surface of the potential possibilities of this game.
Limited heavy weapons….. are you serious?!?!?
I won’t be updating my copy, no thanks. Why do you find it necessary to make such a huge change to the gameplay AFTER you say the game is supposedly out of beta ?
Please stop changing the gameplay. I actually liked the game in it’s last two patches. After reading about the new patch, I’m totally losing interest again.
Don’t moan before you try it! It’s the general concept I need to try, the next bit is tuning.
Well, I guess we should revert to previous patches. After all, you don’t like it and apparently it’s all about you. 🙁
I’m amazed at the amount of rage in these posts, and all before even testing the changes. So since a lot of negative perspectives seem to unjustifiably thrown out there, let me offer my 2 cents.
Apparently people seem to need justification for this limiting of heavy weapons. Well, here you go:
If the RotT reality shares any similarities with our own, then it’s access is limited to rare resources just as we are. Many expensive/technical devices require rare and exotic metals/elements to make. Even something as common as those large energy windmills require several rare/exotic metals to work. As such they can only be produced in limited quantities in an area where the resources to produce them are found. We can only produce many of them in our reality thanks to world wide trade operations dedicated to the mining of those rare metals. Something like a disruptor, decoy, etc. requires rare/exotic metals to produce. While on the moon, mars, etc. these trade routes, extensive mining operations, etc. do not exist. Therefore you are limited to the amount of rare/exotic metals you find locally in each stage location. So there is enough rare/exotic resources to make only a limited amount of the heavy weapons and other limited tech. It does not matter how much cash you have, since all the money in the universe couldn’t buy a resource that doesn’t exist once used up. However, if you do not decide to build a limited tech, then the resources that would have been used to manufacture that tech can be carried/shipped to the new location. Once at the new location additional mining allows you to combine the rare resources together to have enough for two techs. However, due to shipping constraints, there is a cap on the amount of rare resources you can bring from stage to stage since we do not possess unlimited UPS vans in space.
So there you go. For those of you who needed a reason, now you have one.
Overall, I have yet to play it, but I think the changes will be great. 🙂
Like i already pointed out, that explanation at least makes no sense at all for limiting the amount you can hoard to, since the fleet is seemingly carrying enough standard materials to construct unlimited blasters, so swapping a bit of that for rare materials that comprise a really small part of the HWs % wise wouldnt be a problem – unless ofc you have to build your ENTIRE Lasers from rare materials for extra bling for example.
No but really the problem is that, in limiting HWs and not Blasters, the game is basicly telling you, you HAVE to use blasters most of the time, and thats not player choice, that is totally against what attracted many to this game (free choice techtree etc) so many are opting to deliberately staying on a lower version number, even if that means bugs which have been since resolved – i am glad i still have the old installers aswell.
And limiting player choice is one of the few things one does not have to test to being able to say DO-NOT-WANT
After rethinking, I would say you more correct in regards to the cap on hoarding. However, I offer an additional argument.
It’s a game. First and foremost, it’s a game. The rules can be whatever you want them to be or the creator wants them to be. A cap on hoarding doesn’t have to make sense since this isn’t reality, it’s a game. Why can bishops only move diagonally in chess? Because it’s a game and those rules work for that game. When the source code is released you change it as you want.
Limiting player choice is not bad simply due to the limitations. In many instances it makes the game better. If mario could just fly forever over any and all obstacles sure it take away some limitations, but the game would be boring and stupid. Working with limitations is what makes games fun. With these changes you cannot simply rely on one basic strategy. You have to evolve and adapt which will add a whole new dimension to gameplay.
I still say making judgments on the game before actually trying it out is foolish.
Also regardless of how you feel about the specific changes, you’ve got to give Cas credit for creatively responding to feedback. People were mentioning somewhat static gameplay, which is clearly not Cas’ goal with the game. Most big companies don’t make changes like this so quickly unless there are severe bugs. Whether this change will address that or not I suppose remains to be seen.
True, its a game, thats why i say, give us many possiblilities and have us choose which ones to use. If someone thinks a specific building/item is too strong, well dont use it, but dont spoil the fun for others who like to do so.
I especially love your Super Mario comparison on that. Cause, you know, he actually CAN fly.(pretty much forever too, if you know what you are doing) 🙂
http://www.mariowiki.com/Feather
How about an ingame option to turn on/off building limitations? That way no one would have to “change” the game via source, at least in this respect.
“How about an ingame option to turn on/off building limitations? That way no one would have to “change” the game via source, at least in this respect.” Sven
I’m actually surprised that I agree with you. This option could easily be filed under a difficulty setting or additional option. If this were done I suspect it would satisfy both sides of this newly formed divide amongst RotT players. However, due to my lack of programming knowledge I have no idea how difficult this would be to implement.
I am well aware of the feather allowing mario to fly forever. This also makes the sections where that is possible boring, but to each his own.
I was saving that for Sandbox Mode.
Or just write all the balance options to a text file and let users set them the way they want. Then, instead of one guy debating changes, lots of people could debate with each other.
That’s exactly what Sandbox mode is all about, and also, punting out the source for people to monkey with and make mods. Talking of which, in order to make the game easily patchable, I’m going to have to change the deployment on Windows somewhat.
I think limiting resources makes sense, except I would introduce in only late in the game. I.e. the further you go, the more scarce the exotic materials are. So the player is in for a surprise that suddenly old strategies do not work anymore 🙂 But at the same he/she has time to enjoy the heavy weapons earlier.
Regarding the not-so-happy users… I have ran into this game on HIB, and there was no indication whatsoever that it’s work-in-progress. The version number was 1.7x.xx that suggests a pretty mature product. Same happens if somebody downloads the demo. Problem is, you are still changing the *basic* rules of the game, not just doing little adjustments and fix bugs. If you call this a 0.9.80.08 beta, and you accept preorders instead of selling the game, certainly people would react better. That might matters due to community building and fan base building and all that social stuff.
In the Humble Indie Bundle it was made abundantly clear Revenge (and Cortex Commands) were works-in-progress. Albeit finished, playable works, but very assuredly open to change.
I suppose everyone will whine when I add the new buildings too… better just scrap the idea…
C’mon, people! Try it out! Suggest improvements! The explanation for why it’s there is completely rational: the heavy weapons and other exotic buildings are far more powerful than their pricing actually suggests, and I need to cap their usage a bit to prevent the game becoming boring through being overpowered (and, I needed to limit the performance drain caused by droids). I could make heavy weapons proportionately as expensive as they should be – in which case achieving the same thing except you’d almost never use them. Or I could maybe increase the number stockpiled per level. Right now it’s at its absolute stingiest – 1 per level – maybe too little. How about 3?
What I said was not that these changes are bad. It’s that people don’t expect game rules change so significantly, again and again, after something was officially released. At least I believe they don’t, as it’s not how games used to do it. If indie games have to do it like this, and that’s maybe so, then it should be communicated somehow. Calling something a beta/preorderable is a form of that. But if you have to release earlier, then, for example, you could start 2.x *beta* series, telling clearly it’s bleeding edge for those who want to experiment with new ideas, form the future of the game, etc. Then when the rules are mature there, release the 2.0.0 final. Just an idea anyway… you get what I meant.
@HDC – this is still a beta, so I think it’s more than fair, also massive changes after launch are not unique in the industry (I also don’t like it). I paid $50 to essentially beta test this game: http://www.elementalgame.com/ which from what I’ve read is completely unrecognizable now. Similarly, MMO games have balance changes all the time, as people innovate new strategies that start seeming like exploits. So I think you’re right in that Cas’ release announcement was a bit premature, considering these changes, but hey feel free to stick to the version you’ve got.
@Brett – I like that you’re standing up for the Cas. I know my prior post was a bit negative, but I think I made it clear that it was intended to be constructive and that it was uninformed by playtesting. – Also telling Cas to spend time with his kid is for his benefit, not ours;).
@Cas – I’m pumped about tank droids…I think if most tiers of tech trees offer some sort of weapon, it’ll be easier to stomach hard limits. Off to try out the changes!
oh woops, not on HIB site yet…guess I’ll just twiddle my thumbs
You have to find a balance between making the game fun and making it sufficiently difficult.
What you have done is step so far over that line it’s not even funny. The interesting tech is part of what makes this game fun. It’s also responsible for making the game interesting and VARIED. Yes some people will find super-efficient setups and absolutely blow through the game at the hardest difficulty. SO WHAT. You seem to be under the delusion that you can completely stop all exploiters. Impossible. Every game has them, what you are looking to do is amputate player freedom to stop them?
I still have a hard time beating many levels on my first try, and part of the charm is experimenting with different tech solutions.
Will I be able to do that anymore? NO.
You say the game will become boring because overpowered weapons are available? I disagree in the utmost, they make each playthrough interesting.
The solution, according to you is to focus EVERYONE’S play-styles on mainly using using low-tier blasters? and that wont be boring? REALLY!?
My two cents are as such:
RotT is mixing Tower Defense with RTS. How about having a new resource type that mitigates the number of heavier towers you can use? This could even come with a penalty as some sort of conversion in order to maintain Cas’ current implementation. You’d be limited to a certain number of towers but you’d also have the option to forfeit those towers at a balanced loss between levels to boost your preferred count. This would still force players to decide whether they wantedt to cling to their favorite tower at a loss or maximize their output by following the current implementation. The mechanic seems to have room to evolve.
Agree!!!
Being as how I live in California I’m completely digging my posts of the future. Timestamp ftw.
Cas you are doing a absolutely fantastic job. You are a dedicated developer that cares about his product like a child and cares enough to listen to his user base. Keep it up!!! As for the changes…
I was initially pissed about this, mainly because I spam droids until my computer starts chugging (but honestly I don’t care with hundreds of droids swarming a titan). Droids WERE really overpowered in v1.80.7, the main thing that balanced them is that they are stupid. So although
I loved spamming droids: when all you need to build is X droid factories plus one or two heavy weapons (seriously one laser and one rocket!) then I agree with Cas – a design change needs to be made to “encourage” more strategies are used.
Your users don’t like being told “no”, that goes for people in general. “No” is a very powerful word. A less severe approach would be keeping an avenue open to let them continue using their tactics but make it cost them a little. Try using a logarithmic effectiveness model to discourage monolithic building strategies.
As for the 1 per level thing, I think people don’t understand what hoarding means… when it matters you’ll probably have as many heavy weapons as you need (if you play smart and don’t lose your buildings). I can’t think of a case where I’ve ever used more than five of any one heavy weapon. Maybe Cas needs to tune it a little bit, I honestly think that at three per level you might as well not even have the hoarding system because it won’t even make a difference.
Maybe I don’t know what hoarding means :/
I’m currently on Titan, level 45, fought tooth and nail to get there and lot’s of replayed levels and frustration, but also fun. I have so far not experienced any turret or weapon or droid factory as being a simple “defeat all”. I have tried to find one, desperately.
Anyway, that was just background on my personal progress with ROTT. I”m having a hard time explaining this so pardon if this next part just seems like nonsense.
Now the thing that I personally would like is to not have to spend a bajillion in cash on building six dozen refineries and refinery addons each level just to get by. I want to be able to think about my turret placement and weapon/addon-strategy but in the end for me it just ends up being a race to build as many refineries as possible and try to keep the enemies attacking my towers, which they of course don’t due to the in my experience totaly unpredictable AI. So I end up building tons of refineries and addons, end up having to move my turrets around to save them which costs me all my cash, reduced my efficency, and it’s just very frustrating in the end. To make matters worse on the later half of the game the minerals all super spread out and the AI is super aggressive towards your economy buildings. Also there are a lot of enemies that require specialized defenses limiting ones options.
In the end all this makes it so I don’t get the feeling that when I manage to win It was due to my strategy or my plan. It just feels that I was lucky this time because a random number generator made the AI take a different path or I managed to scrape up enough cash to hold on because they didn’t just bypass all my defenses suddenly and steamroll my economy buildings.
My not very tought through suggestion would be to increase the rate that a refinery harvests, limit the addons to 1 per refinery, to keep it simple, perhaps boost the bonuses to compensate and raise the cost of each refinery and refinery addon.
That way I could pop one down, setup a perimiter, focus on my placement and strategy.
Overall though I must say that it’s a great game and I’ve spent many hours with it, even bought it twice. Sad too see you didn’t get any awards, hopefully the big “minecraft-ish” break will come sooner rather then later. 🙂
Cheers!
I am flattered that you think the AI has a random number generator 🙂 I am pleased to announce that the AI is absolutely deterministic and follows a very simple set of rules, and the emergent behaviour only looks complicated!
Jesus at this point they may as well be pickups along with money. Why should we waste our time researching them?
Cas is under the mistaken perception that he can eliminate all exploits at the price of player freedoms.
Another effect of this update, seems to be the fracturing of the community.
Not a good thing to do just before steam release.
@Sylen… maybe there will be yet one more update before the steam release 😉
dang, how many cooks in this kitchen?
Feedback. When it rains it pours.
I really wish people would give it a try first before knocking it.
I am so far not having any problem. I am actually enjoying using heavy weapons as a “support” option 🙂
You don’t have to try it to resent cutting back on player freedom.
Its not exactly a cut back, its just a big stingy. I think the 1 per level needs to be changed to 2 or 3 or something.
Or even better, an option to disable it for those that done like 🙂
Agreed, if you wish to select that “level of difficulty” you should be rewarded with something else in game.
That is actually very popular in RPGs. The level of difficulties, rather than being something simple like ‘all enemies have double hp’ they have game elements that you can turn on and off that significantly affect the way you play the game. This feels an awful lot like one of those game elements…
Having the option to get rid of it would be perfect.
Problem is, Cas seems to be trying to make it more difficult for *everybody*.
I personally find the game rather difficult already(can take me afew tries to pass most levels), and I know alot of others do as well. But apparently some people have been steamrolling through it with efficient high-tech builds.
And we cant have that, can we Cas?
NO SIR.
putting on my chef’s hat…why not have a “build time” for weapons? the bigger more powerful weapons have a longer build time in which the weapon is unavailable. if you don’t use a weapon, then it’s added to your arsenal as per this update. so say i don’t use my laser for level 38, for level 39 i would be able to place two lasers down before having to wait to build another one.
that way you could have more than one big type of weapon per level, you would just have to either save them, or wait a minute (seconds?) to build another, as you fight an angry horde.
(…the rebuild time would be a lot shorter for the smaller weapons as to be insignificant.)
The build time is “the length of a level” 🙂 Anything else I suspect would make people extra cross, and it’d also make things a bit more complex than I want. And it’d mean more graphics. Bugger that!
Still not good enough.
If we really are doomed to this restrictive system, then it should be a limit on how many you have ACTIVE, not how many can be placed. Same idea as droid factories only supporting a limited number of droids at a time.
If you can only have 1 heavy weapon on a boss level, what good is it gonna do when it moves past it’s range or gets destroyed quickly?
None. Your screwed, unless you have enough money to bankrupt yourself throwing heavy blasters at it.
By “active” I mean you can only have so many built at a time, there is no cap for how many can be built per level.
I like that idea. I really do.
A limit on how many active heavy weapons you have a level is better then the system we have now.
It would help preserve the fluidity of the game. When titans start avoiding the heavy weapon you placed, at least this way you can salvage it and put it down again, instead of it being a wasted investment.
That’s a good suggestion. Although… how about: if your building is recycled (or sold), you get the unit back?
I think that’d be much more awesome. I can keep the 1-a-level build rate, and then you have to look after them.
Oh yes. I think I’ll code that up now and upload it.
Sounds good to me, 1.80.9 here we come! :\ (and I just got 1.80.8 backed up too) :\
One day all these rare versions will be worth a fortune!
:sweatdrop: I actually dont keep the previous versions of RoTT for two reasons one my flash drives have limited space and 2 I just dont have the time for it all 😐
looking forward to 1.80.9 :3
I’m glad you like it, I think most people would prefer this to the current.
However I’m still gonna be asking for more than 1 turret at a time! And the way you describe the recycling… doesn’t that mean as long as you build one, you can keep putting it down for free? As you’ve been going out of your way to balance so much I find it surprising you’d allow it (meaning you can just recycle whenever it starts to take damage).
It would also mean you could ABSOLUTELY demolish bosses. Lol, just pick it up and follow them with it when they move out of range.
Perhaps a store discount upon selling? Or you get more value back when you salvage them(like 70-80%)?
Ah I think you might have misunderstood how it works from the very beginning of this thread… might explain some of the rage:
the weapons are stockpiled, 1 per level, up to a maximum of 10 in the inventory (5 for droid factories, shield generators, and decoys). You can build up your heavy weapons within a few levels to the same numbers you’ve always used; with the latest 1.80.9 patch coming out in a few hours, you will be particularly rewarded for keeping them working during a level by being able to reuse them.
looking forward to 1.80.9 later today/tomorrow
ps now it really doesnt matter much but the HIB links still point to 1.80.7 perhaps you could give Rosen a loving poke in the bottom about that?
No, I was raging over artificially imposed limits on interesting tech.
Still a problem.
On the recycling. You don’t get it for free Sylen. You get a unit available back for placement, but at the cost of lost investment. A limited building may cost $1500, but can be recycled for $750 resulting in a net loss of $750. The unit may be available for replacement over and over again, but at the cost of lost investment each time. This will encourage flexible strategies and discourage simply following the boss along a trail.
There has to be a limit on interesting tech. As it stands now, they are just too powerful for the price. The only other main option was mentioned earlier by Cas. The price of the interesting tech could sky rocket and cost a whole lot more. This would still limit the tech, but overall would be a lot less interesting gameplay wise.
I personally think this idea is great. Ironically it comes from Sylen who is the only one dissatisfied with the solution.
I hope the humble bundle updates soon. I’m still stuck on 1.80.7. I cannot wait try out these new updates.
Yeah, I misread that.
If it were up to me I would just prefer the balance from 1.87 or even 1.82
Anythings better than 1.88 though, so yeah, bring on 1.89.
So that means you can stockpile them as long as you look out for them and dont loose them in the missions? I like that idea, actually i like that alot. That way you are still allowed to have your focus on heavy weapons, as long as you are careful not to loose them (this also fits with the whole rare minerals aspect, as you can simply recycle them as long as they dont get eaten by angry Gidrahs)
Esteemed Puppygames customer-types, v1.80.9 now awaits your downloads. Bundlers, I have poked Jeffrey, but he is “Away” on IM at the moment. It looks like 1.80.8 will never make it to Bundlers 🙂
I’m off out for my usual Sunday night geek club. I will check the flames upon my return in a few hours.
Oh and here’s what’s changed:
New Features and Enhancements
Gidrahs are now slightly slowed down on boggy ground (and therefore, avoid it a bit)
Sold / recycled buildings added back to resource count
Internal
Online check accidentally detected loopback addresses as being internet-connected
Multiple nag texts
N00000!!!!! Now my collection of all the versions will be incomplete! 🙁
Oh well. 🙂
Are you going to post a new blog on the differences between 1.80.8 and 1.80.9? If not what are they? Is it just the tweek we’ve been discussing?
Have fun at the at the club. 🙂
Sorry, I replied before the edit was made.
This will be the rarest version of them all, 1.80.8 the elusive nerdrage version. Again, haven’t gotten a chance to try it yet…not sure this recycling thing will achieve what you’re after Cas, since I’m guessing most people avoid losing heavy weapons buildings…But the cap on droid factories will probably work well. I’m not complaining though. Looking forward to trying it out.
I have a copy of the HIB v1.80.8 if you really want it.
What no new blog? 🙂
I hope you realize I only rage because I love.
I really like this game, and I want to continue to be able to enjoy it, that’s all.
But isnt being able to enjoy a game regardless of what changes are made to it? I am not questioning your rage or even insulting you. just a tad curious.
???
Not sure I get the question. Putting “being able to enjoy the game” and “changes” in the same sentence requires context. If the changes are for the worse, people generally enjoy it less, because they would make the game less fun.
For example if Cas decided to nerf the hell out of everything(I mean continue doing that) or for whatever reason, revert to 1.7 gameplay, I can safely say that I would probably no longer enjoy the game.
It’s not unconditional love.
I am sorry, I did word my question wrong. but never the less you answered it. blame my horrible sleep patterns atm.
Is there a _guess_ about when the Steam release will be?
Maybe a guess as to how long it will take after you submit it to Steam? I’m curious about how long it takes for Steam to actually add it to their catalog after submission.
You guys are doing a great job, but I think I might not play it anymore until it shows up on Steam. Too much stuff keeps changing and I never get to play very far before the next update. =D
In theory it should be there in the next 24 hours.
Which question was that in reply to? In theory 24 hours from when you give it to them or in theory 24 hours from the time of your comment it might be on Steam?
FAIL. We got pushed back till Wednesday :/
Will those of us who have the Humble Indie Bundle 2 registered on Steam automatically get this on Steam too?
I love my Steam, its so hot.
There is no tweet yet to the effect, but 1.80.9 is out on Humble Bundle.
Found a error. When you use a building that isn’t limited ever, such as a normal blaster, it says “blaster [0]” Even though its use is unlimited, the display says there is none available. While this works for limited buildings, ie droid factories that go from Droid factory [1] to Droid factory [0], for unlimited buildings it makes no sense to display an availability counter at all and even less sense for it to display [0].
There are a couple displays, so to specify, the display I’m talking about is the one that shows up after the building has been selected and is ready to place. The one that appears as a thin display directly above the main item selection display.
Ah yes, that could do with being fixed. But I’ll let it slide for a bit until something more serious turns up, like it always does…
Just got to Mars on 1.80.9 – looking ok so far, performance seems snappier…even though I’m heavily multitasking on a netbook running on battery…so that’s an accomplishment.
Regarding balance, I’ve taken to playing with an assortment of blasters and a lax attitude. Before I tended to be somewhat stingy with money, restarting a lot, so I’d always get more. So far, I’ve managed to do alright with relatively little, occasionally getting a lot, and then losing some in the next few levels. Getting into this rhythm, and using an assortment of blasters, the game seems to play pretty well. I’m scared to try teching to rockets or droids early on though….maybe that’s as it should be. Also I did research decoys, and the limit is not hindering me at all. I don’t know who depends on having a lot of decoys at once, but one or two every few levels is more than enough for me….I suppose if I had strong walls researched it may make a difference….as it is, it just feels like I’m defending a secondary base, that I can use to change the pathing and sell before it gets destroyed.
Indeed – you know how many of the levels are really quite big, but 75% of the level has nothing useful in it, just terrain – no crystals, roads, spawn points or whatever? Decoys are about sending aliens off into the furthest corners of the map – and preferably through a serious choke point where you can easily wipe them out. A decoy combined with a chokepoint and heavy weapon… the strategy is complex but cool and effective.
It probably comes more into its own in Survival mode. A lot of the tech balance decisions have been made with Survival mode ultimately in mind. RotT was originally conceived, many years ago, as just being Survival. The campaign was an extremely costly decision we made to try and lure people into the fun of discovering the technology bit by bit. (There never even used to be any research! The tech was just revealed to you one level at a time. How things have changed!)
I just played through to Mars with 1.80.9 too and it feels good so far. My strategy of getting all the resource gathering tech and then droids early while collecting all the blaster buffs that I was using in 1.80.7 is working just fine.
I’m definitely starting to feel the more expensive droid factories and the limit of 5. But so far it hasn’t been too bad by leaving some supported heavy blasters and blast cannons near my base to take care of the big boys that slip through.
The spider titans (don’t remember the name right now) I can tell are going to be a pain. I’ve steadily been losing built-up money since starting Mars, probably through the little supported outposts I’m building to defend the refineries. I may need to research the decoy to deal with them efficiently.
While it’ll take me a while to get back there, the last level (or few levels) when I beat it in 1.80.6-7 was really dark. To the point I couldn’t see all the features on the ground and paths and mountains until I tried and failed a number times just to take in the scenery (then had to try and fail a number of times to just beat it, and even then I had no idea where some of the guys were pathing, but my droids were killing them). This was made worse (on the eyes) by the boss flashing bright white when hit. It may be worth considering lightening the ground just a little on that level.
Depending on the feedback you get and if you want to change it, I can see the limit of 5 heavy weapons (is it 5 like the factories, or 10?, haven’t researched them yet) causing trouble in later levels (For druid factories, I liked the idea of 3+level number, leaving 5 for Moon, 6 for Mars, and 8 on Titan, which felt reasonable last time I was on Titan). I’ll have to play through it again to see, because trying to replay later levels with a profile that already beat them from 1.80.7 means I only have one of each limited building available.
Also, the last few patches I got wraiths in survival earth mode, are they supposed to show up on earth survival? Typically I don’t have capacitors yet on Earth.
Overall, I’d say great job and it feels well polished. (alot of progress in the last three months!)
And congrats on the new kiddo, they’re alot of fun. Guess why I’m up at 3 AM and now I can’t get back to sleep?
I think you might possibly need to calibrate the gamma on your monitor there…
Well, I feel a little silly. Gamma calibration fixed it, thanks. (Calibrated my monitor settings for brightness/contrast/color a while ago, but forgot to re-do Gamma in the software when I updated my OS)
Found an error with the online high scores. Its hard to describe without simply stating what happened, so here I go:
I was playing through survival on Earth stages with no terrain and a small map. I got a time, but it was less than the high score. However, it said that I didn’t beat the online high score of “my name” with the high score of someone else. For example, I got a time of 12:30:20, and the high score was 14:20:25 by Kioshi. It would say “Congratulations “my name” 12:30:20″ but you didn’t beat the online high score of “my name” 14:20:25.” The name of the current high score holder was replaced with “my name” upon completion of the stage and the display of post game results.
However, it doesn’t end there. I changed the parameters to Earth, small, lots of terrain. There was no high score yet. So I got a score of 13:30:20. At the end of stage results display it said, Congrats “my name” 13:30:20 but you didn’t beat the online high score of “my name” 14:20:25
Finally, I did one more test on medium terrain, earth, small. I just let myself die as a test. There was no high score yet. The final results display said:
Time survived: 00:02:33:22
Didn’t beat online high score record of
00:14:20:25 [my name]
The high score of Earth, small, no terrain is being substituted everywhere even where there is no high score.
I briefly tried other planets and stages and this same thing seems to be happening everywhere. The high scores are just really bugged up.
I tried to be specific, but what exactly is going on is kind of confusing.
I’ll investigate and patch next weekend in all likelihood.
Gameplay feedback from mission land…I played till mars with blasters, and now tried teching to rockets on earth…it feels the same as before the limit/hoarding update. I’m thinking the change from 1.80.8-1.80.9 undid the ‘nerf’ in 1.80.8, at least in most ways that count (maybe people that depend heavily on walls and mines are feeling it, but no difference for an all-rocket defense. I’m enjoying the game, so this is definitely not a complaint, just letting you know that I’m not sure your 1.80.9 update had the desired effect.
-Emile
It was a very subtle nerfing. I was slightly surprised by the rage it received… but then its original incarnation didn’t have the recycling in.
I still might limit heavy weapon stockpiles to a maximum of 3 though (currently 10). They make a mockery of the advancing forces.
Just tried it in survival mode…the limit is definitely felt here. It really makes a tech rush to rockets an unviable strategy for survival mode, since after 10 minutes I only had 2 rocket launchers and my regular blasters couldn’t handle the heavy shields.
The result was that when my rockets were reloading they’d get taken out. I think the limit is kind of nice there, since it gives a sort of bottleneck on the big guns, other than just cost. So around minute 5, I was sitting there with loads of money, waiting for another gun to pop up. Then I looked away and when I came back, one of the rockets was gone…I was devastated, and I think this is as it should be. The problem is that even if I had protected the rockiets better, it wouldn’t have made a difference, as the heavier guys started coming out. I think to balance it better, the new rockets and bombs need to be available a bit more quickly… (maybe every 3 minutes or so). The real challenge then becomes keeping your own rockets from killing eachother. Oh, I noticed that they don’t kill themselves anymore, which is nice. Though it may make for a sploit of sorts where you hide the gun behind a wall to have it function like a better version of the disrupter.
Again the campaign seems the same to me…and still enjoyable.
For the next game, how about trying to combine this with the pvp elements of games like left 4 dead? Titans vs Blasters…do with this idea as you will, and I don’t even want credit for it, since I’m sure you’ve already thought of it anyway:).
Could you please stop nerfing for a while? You barely have any feedback from this nerf.
I haven’t had time to really test it out myself yet(school is heavy this week), but already anticipate the shortage of mines and walls will be a problem on-top of all the other stuff that got nerfed(regular walls get eaten pretty quick and teching to unobtainium walls is usually pretty low on the priority of stuff to tech).
I dont want to accuse you have having too much time on your hands, but it seems like every week there is a whole set of game-changing updates, and half the time you start the update with something like: “One thing led to another and…”
Right now I think you need to stop making the game harder unless people start saying it’s too easy.
And please, try to remember that severe limits (Stockpile of 3? you’ll be hearing alot more whining when that happens) are intrusive to player creativity and fun-factor. If someone wants to completely overkill a level once in a while, whats the harm in letting them?
Try avoiding hardcaps(which gamers are more averse to) with softer methods if you can, perhaps another price hike(a reasonable one) or a medal/bonus for completing a level with less heavy tech.
The problem with hardcaps is that you force everyone to play in a more mainstream way, Tech was *supposed* to be a main attraction in this game( was it not)? The thing I liked about the tech tree was that the more you unlocked, more viable methods of play became available. The more you limit it, the more marginalized it becomes.
I don’t think I want to change it from 10 really… right now I need to do a little buffing to balance the nerfs. The suggestion for slightly more frequent reinforcements in Survival sounds good. Rather than just increase the rate I think we’ll introduce a new set of random pickups which give you an extra rocket launcher, etc. just to add a bit of fun.
All suggestions gratefully received 🙂 And don’t forget “Sandbox mode”.
I did have an idea of allowing people to upload maps made in ASCII, with a bit of text describing the gidrah types, and available resources etc., and then you’d be able to try out each others’ maps for hiscores.
Ah yes, the fabled “sandbox” mode 🙂
I’d love to see that sometime soon. Hopefully shortly after the steam release (which you are late for).
Just curious, does sandbox allow us to put down whatever we want without limit? The ability to control enemy spawns would be pretty nifty too, could make for some epic battles.
And yeah, some non-random player made maps would be pretty cool. Expanding the following on steam will definitely make something like that a more-productive community feature.
Hey Cas, you mentioned at the bottom of this post that you’ve got a new game to write. Any spoilers about what it’s going to be about? 🙂
Just a quick question from the Humble Bundle (and future Steam) userbase. Is there any chance of allowing us to grab a copy of the 1.80.7 build? I know you are pushing for acceptance with the new changes, but sometimes the old style of play is fun to play around with. Maybe you could disable the high score and/or any other multiplayer feature with the build.
Hiscores etc. are filtered by game version number so that’s not a bother. I might get around to uploading 1.80.7 but the thing is I fix other stuff in each build as well… for example in 1.80.9 the gidrahs are now slowed down by the blotchy terrain which means they tend to avoid it (and therefore it’s a good place to plonk turrets down etc etc). I’m hoping to just get the balance right eventually by homing in on stuff that people enjoy – kinda like how we finally seem to have nailed difficulty.
Ah, I see. Thank you for considering the possibility of uploading version 1.80.7 for the player base. There is something about unlimited droids that made this game such a blast to play. I know it takes away from the challenge, but sometimes it is nice to have that option of good mindless fun controlling a massive droid army.
Have made it about halfway through the new campaign with the new changes. There are differences felt.
No longer is it viable to tech straight to mines and rely on them until other techs start catching up. Kind of sad to see that strategy go because while it was an effective strategy it was not an easy strategy. Mine placement even with 50/30/10 was something that needed extremely careful planning. The problem with hoarding with mines is that Almost all of my mines needed to be used every level. At 20/10/? I can only use mines as a primary effective strategy every third level.
Yes, I was using a monolithic tech strategy, but it was a fun and rewarding strategy that is expensive enough to no longer appeal to me (especially early in the game when teching to mines pretty much cripples me).
Maybe mines needed balancing, but I believe they are now too weak (aka “not fun”). I wish there were a way I could use more mines at the cost of something else. Maybe you can increase the limit but make them more expensive to set down. Even 30/15/? would be welcome with a reasonable percentage increase in cost (not so much as to bankrupt the player).
Thanks for the great game. Looking forward to its evolution.
You need to research Extra Mines, Plastic Charge Patterns and Advanced Explosives then 🙂
That’s with all of that. Just think about what it takes to finish entire levels without setting anything but mines. It’s no small task! Jeeze the only reason I started using other techs was because there are no AIR mines or GHOST mines.
In fact I teched everything but extra mines (which offers only 50% more mines, which wouldn’t even bring me back to prepatch levels). I stopped because I realized there was no way I could make it to extra mines.
There is a point for buffing the mines and walls back.
Mines and walls especially are designed to expendable(that’s the nature of them really). Hoarding them doesn’t really make sense, because they were designed to be used, and used in enough numbers to be effective.
If you want to use a decent amount of them so that they can actually do their job, you would have to hoard, which means depriving yourself for a number of levels to do this. If you use them without hoarding you dont get the desired effect, and your that much farther away from having enough to have the desired effect.
Seems like a practice in starving yourself for not enough of a reward.
That actually had me thinking, from my understanding, the goal with these changes is to encourage people to not be stuck with one repetitive and simple strategy but to encourage them to explore a variety of strategies. To me this is achieved by having varied level design, including varied monster abilities. and avoiding having one approach that can take all comers. I think the earlier changes on buff buildings helped people get away from building a big cluster at the base, although on some levels this approach cannot be avoided…again creating variety.I think the variety already is pretty good, but there’s one possibility that I think could add to this diversity, while not nerfing existing tech trees too much.
Maybe a good way to balance lasers rockets mines and walls would be to have more flyers earlier on. Rather than the guys that drop bombs (which require range/shields/droids to deal with well), these could be like flying versions of the other guys, doing melee damage to buildings. Maybe make them have slightly less armor, but appear in large numbers, like the basic gidrahs. My reasoning is this:
Blasters would handle them equivalently to other gidrahs encouraging you to continue to use blasters
Droids are limited by their tendency to go places en mass. If flyers take different routes than other gidrahs, you’d probably have to deal with them separately…encouraging a more mixed form of defense.
Lasers are good vs both land and air, but only with low armor, vs large waves of enemies they do well, but if there are mixed waves of flyers and land based enemies, the lasers will only be half as efficient.
Rockets are potentially overpowered vs. land units but useless vs air…so air units would force combined defenses. .
Rockets also require a specific approach to defense, since you have to spread your buildings out to avoid destroying them. This makes it difficult to work with limited numbers of rockets.You could also consider some kind of sam blaster that is only good vs air, and possibly takes less or no damage from explosives Or an armored blaster that resists rocket blasts but is similar and less cost effective than a medium blaster.
Wait.. maybe I haven’t been paying attention. I’ve been assuming these changes affect campaign and probably endless. How does this work in survival? I’m not far enough up in tech to check.
In Survival, you get another batch of new buildings whenever a boss spawns. And of course in Survival you can also get mines and barricades as pickups.
Yeah, but what about limitations? in everything written you said that heavy weapons were limited by 1 per level. There are no levels in survival. Are we allowed to place them without limit?
They are produced at a rate of 1 per level in Campaign and Endless modes; in Survival mode, they are produced every time a boss spawns.
This doesn’t seem like a terribly good way to balance the buildings. Something better might be to make the *heavy* things more expensive ( +30% ?) as you build more of them. i.e. Droid Factory #1 is $1500, #2 is $1950, #3 is $2400 etc. So you can always build them it just gets more expensive, as you use up the supply of McGuffins needed for the shiny stuff. 🙂
that’s how it was at about 1.80.5…I think it worked pretty well, though maybe the increase was a bit too steep… it would double.
As someone who last played through the game at 1.7 and recently came back, this is a bit overwhelming. Not necessarily in a bad way though.
So the general behavior you’re trying to enforce is to use more turrets and hit Gidras as they pass by, not stop them cold at any one place. I don’t mind this chance in particular; I did notice that the last part of the game was too repetitive in older versions.
The problem is, how should I deal with maps like this?
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2010-7/1358237/RevengeOfTheTitans%202011-03-08%2021-06-11-25.JPG
This is on the moon, of course. I have blasters up to the blast cannon, basic buffs and the rest in economy. The three-eyes have started showing up, so I can’t really hope my refineries go unnoticed.
I guess I could just ignore the crystals and get some money off of scavenging, but the crystals don’t appear any more conveniently later on…I’d just bleed to death.
From designer comments, it looks like I’m supposed to reload easier maps until things get sane again. But then, why have a medal for never doing that through the whole game?
I’m kind of confused. Could anyone help me out?
That’s just a hard, hard map. The random number generator hates you. I’d deal with it by getting barricades all around those crystals, mining what I could but maybe not defending them much or at all; and if an occulus triplodocus bashes in a factory… build another factory on top of the bugger to squash it. Squashing gidrahs is an effective way of dealing with them, especially the big ones.
If you had decoys you’d be laughing, as you could just send the gidrahs off on a wild goose chase defended by heavy weapons surrounded with barricades.
Generating an easier map is always an option, but of course, you’ll be missing out on lovely medals…
Having played through the last 5 or so updates until 1.06, here are my thoughts:
1. If as Cas said, the main reason for limiting droids was the overhead, then maybe the algorithm needs to be rethought. How complex is the AI? Could some of that complexity be moved to just the sergeants?
I would imagine the AI goes something like this:
a. For every enemy on screen, find the closest one.
b. Move towards it.
c. If within range, shoot at it.
So, [a] is an O(n) equation. [b] and [c] are O(1). If you can reduce [a] then you can save some CPU cycles. Even putting in an if
statement to only run [a] every 30 ticks would trade Enemies*Friendlies*30 operations (maybe 75000?) for 30 operations.
Or maybe weak droids just walk in a random direction (eliminating [a]) then when you get sergeants, the sergeants can home in on enemies, and the weak droids just follow them. There’s a lot less CPU cycles in having the weak droids follow their one leader until he dies.
-Just because you need to limit the number on screen may be a necessary reason for nerfing droids, but not ideal. The above solution would allow for a lot of action, and it would also potentially make the droids a bit weaker if that is also a concern. And it might also eliminate that droid bunching problem.
2. Since the turret upgrades were nerfed, I haven’t really used them. But before, I used them a lot. It would be nice to be able to experiment with making one rocket have long range. Or have some multiblasters with huge ammo, or blasters with fast recharge. But, that seems too expensive in 1.06.
3. I posted earlier: allow all the stats/balance be set by the players, in debug mode perhaps…
4. Multiplayer ROTT 2??
1. I have just identified another performance issue with droids, which was that every frame they had a loaded weapon they’d scan for targets in range and shoot at the closest one, if any. That’s a lot of checking when you’ve got 50 droids (the current maximum). Now they will only check once per second. The rest of the code is pretty much all just as fast as it can be I think.
It should of course be possible to handle hundreds of droids – the problem is that hundreds of droids is vastly overpowered and would make the game cool to look at for a level or two, but rather boring ultimately. The code there at the moment should handle a couple of hundred droids with no serious ill effects although each droid is compose of 3 sprites I think and we’ve got an irritating Java performance bottleneck on sprite counts as we’re unable to turn off bounds checking. Grr.
2. !!! You can’t really survive without upgrading turrets. The upgrades got seriously cheap to account for their reduction in ability; the idea was that you’d generally upgrade turrets with 4 or so of a particular type to get the maximum benefit, and that some turrets respond more efficiently to certain upgrades than others. Lasers and rockets with scanners for example; cooling towers with multiblasters; batteries with spreader cannon. Use survival mode to find out what’s most efficient.
3. Sandbox mode 😉
4. Our next game is multiplayer. It might involve huge armies of Droid Assault battledroids. Like, 500 fully customised units a side, on community designed maps, fighting each other for money… more news at a later date…
Well having played the newest update recently, I can safely say that 1 droid factory at a time doesn’t even put a *dent* in the hordes on Mars.
Maybe we dont needs hundreds up, but I definitely think we could stand to have a few more.
After 5 levels of carefully protecting your droid factories, you’ll have 5 to play with…
That’s true but if the game can handle it, it would still be nice for them to make afew more droids per factory. I dont know how effective they are considering the price.
1 extra droid is certainly not worth a 500$ reactor.
The only cases it would be is if you stacked a bunch of factories close to each-other.
Er, exactly. That’s how upgrades are meant to work. In theory you could be looking at 5 extra droids for a $500 reactor. And the reactor lops a second off the production rate too.
Right now, the unbuffed refinery produces 6 droids, which fire at an average rate of 1 shot every 2.25 seconds doing 2 points of damage; so your full squad is doing 5.3 points of damage per second per $1000 spent. A blaster does 0.4 shots per second doing 4 points of damage; so four blasters will be doing 6.4 points of damage per second for $1000. However blasters can’t move, can’t target gidlets, and stop firing for 10 seconds to reload; over the course of a minute, the blasters will have fired about 80 rounds causing 320 points of damage, but the droids will have dealt 318 points of damage also. So they are effectively perfectly balanced damage-wise, but their abilities and how they are best used are entirely down to you.
mmmm, love droid assault.
You got a 360? We’re working on a 4-player splitscreen co-op Droid Assault for 360 at the moment.
*car crash sound* what? OH GOD I NEED MS POINTS NOW.
now i wish i did.
Here’s an early build of the conversion – no split screen as yet though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmZHZA2yW
Erm….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmZHZA2yW0
“2. !!! You can’t really survive without upgrading turrets. ”
I guess I’m just that good. 😉 At level 26 on Mars… maybe I will research my first turret upgrade. But only because I need scanners to get X-Ray. Hope I can get it before the ghosts come…
Where is the steam version ? Shouldn`t it be released on 7th of March?
It’s been delayed. Might be out later today.
I recently noticed something kind of odd with Titan destruction. When Titans attack a building, it does damage to the Titans and the building. The starting small giradahs are destroyed after a single attack. However, I noticed the same is not true when they destroy barricades. They can destroy an infinite number of barricades without hurting themselves. I was wondering what the significance of this was. Does the physical stress of attacking kill them, in which case destroying barricades should also kill them, or are the buildings inhabited with small forces that go unseen, but kill them during the assault on the building, or what?
Titans die when bashing buildings down but not barricades. Big Titans lose 25% of their hitpoints when they bash a building, so an unwounded big Titan will get 4 hits; a wounded big Titan will get considerably less.
The rationale behind this is that buildings have some defensive mechanisms in them that damage physical attackers. Barricades, being simply lumps of stuff, don’t. And it makes the game design more balanced. A long, long time ago the gidrahs didn’t die when they attacked, which of course meant a very short game once they reached your base.
Also notice that big Titans don’t drop pickups when they die like this, or if you crush them under buildings.
Thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
Meh, I can’t even get past the first Boss on earth with the changes in 1.80.8 and 1.80.9 even with help from berserk power up and used all my money on turrets (most of them heavy ,+1 dam and +1 piercing researched). It just walked over me.
I understand the limitation on more exotic weapons, but on walls?
It seems I most play this game on easy.
Couldn’t these changes be to a tougher difficult settings? So we have easy, normal and insane?
What on Earth are you doing wrong, Simon? (And the boss isn’t impeded much by walls…)
Did you watch the playthrough on Youtube?
I have found a solution to the boss, and I’m half though the moon :D. I changed strategy, by planting turrets near the Boss walking path.
When I think about it, I think the last path changes regarding limitation may be a good thing – I really needed to spread out my research (as someone mentioned previously).
I just watched the last part of that walkthrough, and if this is the way the game is meant to be played I think it’s too limiting. The pathing/intelligence of your AI is the big issue for me.
I’m sure you already consider your AIs as having unique behaviors that modify the battle field, but some of their behaviors are not enjoyable for the player. For instance, you have a slew of enemies that walk the roads and let towers attack them as long as they aren’t directly in their way; however if something is right in front of them they will take a bite out of it (it’s kind of cute, actually, but very frustrating as a strategic player). I think this is frustrating to the player because they are trying to use your cues (roads) to determine where they should build their defenses. The game even says not to build too close to the path that the AI walk so as to avoid being attacked. Unfortunately AI get bunched up and spread out, which in turn alters the path they walk and provides plenty of machinery for them to bite along their happy trails.
I propose a simplified set of AI groups (as you already have them, clearly discernible via their size) which have very particular objectives. Some quick, basic brainstormy ideas to maybe get you thinking:
Basic AI just want to eat your base, they will walk the roads, but will also walk around (and thus not attack) anything and everything in order to get where they are going (allowing the player to maze if they so choose). Additionally, imagine the concept of mazing in conjunction with decoy!
MiniBoss AI will attack anything that gets in their way, but will NEVER stray from roads (allowing the player a clear understanding of the route the miniboss will take, and providing the player the choice to block or not block).
Boss AI will attack anything that gets in their way and will take the most direct route to their target (because they are tall and can see it, not because they are smart!). However, they move terribly slow and are easily distracted by a decoy.
I also propose more clear spawning:
Each AI type should have a unique spawn icon displayed at the location of its spawn point.
Cheers!
I wish we’d never mentioned “tower defense” anywhere in the descriptions of the game now.
Revenge of the Titans is an RTS. You just don’t have much in the way of mobile units. Try to imagine it as a Zerg rush in Starcraft. It’s not Gemcraft or Defense Grid. The aliens aren’t following any path at all. Their brains just try and get them to whatever they want to bash as fast as possible, avoiding danger where they can. It’s what makes the game special.
They do already have various brains and tuning parameters that alter their characteristics as you suggest. The big gidrahs are less bothered by danger, as are gidrahs with armour. The boss totally ignores danger. And so on. Just go with the flow, feel how the aliens are going to attack, be prepared to lose turrets and panic a bit. That’s what it’s all about.
Hm I sound a bit grumpy there don’t I. Been a long day, wrangling with the hopeless Steam content management tool… still, it’s uploaded now. Just need to go to sleep before the faeries come to deposit a £5,000,000 note under my pillow.
Didn’t mean to insight any anger, and while I understand your goals I think perhaps the rules are misleading. The game suggests the player should build their defenses around the path that the enemies will take, going so far as to allow the player to build up their defenses before the round even begins. But it’s hard for the player to do that if they don’t know the path that the enemies will take. Many enemies clearly do follow the roads (I’m guessing some ‘care’ enough to use them because they speed up their movement?), which is extremely useful for the player, because it gives us some guidelines for where to build our towers, but when the AI doesn’t always follow those rules, I tend to feel cheated by the game.
I think it will be very hard for you to argue that this isn’t a tower defense, but your framing does help. I see that I have been approaching things incorrectly in game, however I also feel that you could improve the gameplay by establishing your monsters rules of engagement more clearly.
They have very clear rules, that’s the thing. But these rules are very subtle and lead to some very dynamic, fluid emergent behaviour which honestly I’ve arrived at just by tweaking and tweaking and tweaking to get them to behave exactly the way that they do – that is, almost predictably. Almost. You can’t totally predict what they’re going to do other than use your wits and make a good guess – which is the essence of the whole thing. This is a tower defense with totally freeform play field – the precise opposite of, say, Immortal Defense which is tower defense in its most pure and simple form. With a great story too 🙂
Well, I’m glad you like it. 😉
But it doesn’t have to be different. It can just be It, as long as it’s fun. It’s fun! (at least on 1.06, haven’t tried the new vers yet)
I like to switch over to ROTT for a short game while my netflix video is loading.
Walls have always been limited though since like 1.72
It’s been further reduced, which a bit tedious, especially when enemies comes from all sides – but I managed so far. I’m a bit worried when I come to Mars, when the enemies gets smarter.
There is research for extra barricades and mines.
Research that has at least afew pre-requisites that would be better spent on other paths and more useful structures, and even when researched it gives you the same or less than pre-nerf.
Yay for this game – it was actually possible to play on a AMD Sempron 3000+ (now that is ancient!), albeit backed up with a Radeon 3450. A bit choppy music (like a broken record) here and there but otherwise enough to keep me in action.
Poo on the Steam crap though. Can I get the game without that?
uh yeah? you can buy it direct from puppygames.
I apologize for the above about Steam – some people like it, others don’t. No need for me to market my (unwanted) opinion on the matter. After I posted, I found out I could buy it without going via Steam.
I wish could edit my post.
Apart from that, I saw that my demo version was old (1.80.1 I think) so I did a re-download. Still have choppy music even in a small window size but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere hardware-wise, eh?
Still love the game to bits. 🙂 You’ve made a wonderful game!
I think the choppy music is mostly down to GPU rather than CPU.
I like Steam so don’t feel worried about it 🙂
Woah, I go away for a bit and come back to find this is the post with the largest amount of feedback/dialogue (particularly prominent complaining IMO)
Kinda surprised at the amount of people saying to ‘change this, change that’….and in all honesty, it seems like these very people are those who prefer not to adapt their gameplay style.
Have only managed to play a couple of worlds so far with the most recent build (lack of time), but the simple fact is that the game is now most definitely MORE strategic and forces you to play in different ways, rather than just relying on the same tech/strategy every level; and makes certain tech less disposable, and what is wrong with that?!?!? Admittedly, this may have been easier for certain players to swallow if added to an earlier build, but then c’mon, do you people really have any understanding of how hard it is to get balance right via gameplay design/mechanics/difficulty/accessibility/depth/replay value?
Personally, I’m waiting until the new tech is available before I start criticizing the developers (if they indeed need criticism, and then only of the constructive variety!)
Judging by the amount of anger on this post, seems like some of you would prefer to burn Cas and Chas at the stake!!! (or at least one individual in particular seems to demand this) 🙂
p.s. cool icon btw!
i admit, i love this game, but i haven’t even played the latest version. i’m too afraid i’ll catch what everyone else has got.
The new version plays fine, it’s just a bit more challenging. I started a new campaign when 18.09 came out, and have just got to Saturn, so it’s definitely not as restricting as some people on here would have you believe…it just kind of prevents exploiting the game with simple strategies.
I like Revenge of the Titans, because it is challenging, and I have to keep re-evaluating my strategies to succeed, and in that sense, I think the new version is the best one.
I think you confused the word “exploiting” with “exploring”. Nobody(well most of us) here is mad because “zomg now we cant be cheap :(“. It’s annoying because there is less open to us then there was before. I liked experimenting with the tech in ways that are now just not possible(or rather not nearly as easy to do).
Sandbox mode
“not possible” and “not nearly as easy” are different. is your beef with the game that it’s too restrictive or too difficult? meaning, if you can still do everything as before, but it’s just harder to do so, is that really limiting your options?
Actually, I think you’ve confused exploring with exploiting. Let me explain. This limitation/hoarding aspect has only prevented exploiting, but not exploring. Exploiting is finding a first order optimal strategy, ie one strategy that works well, and using it over and over again. Exploring is constantly finding new avenues and paths that lead to victory, ie trying out other tech and combinations in new an innovative ways. The limit prevents using only one of just a few tech over and over again to achieve victory, ie the limit prevents exploiting via first order optimal strategies. Exploring is unaffected since due to the hoarding aspect and the large variety of tech, new and innovative combinations can constantly be set up. By the time you’ve tried other routes and tech, the initial limited tech is back up to full capacity and ready to be used again. If anything the limits prevents exploitation and encourages exploration and creativity on the field of battle.
I can agree with some parts of this although I need to know, did survival use a building drop-system in 1.87 or could you just put down what you wanted without limit(besides economy)? If it’s the latter I dont see how anyone could logically argue that randomized building drops are actually preferable.
Though I fully disagree about the reduction and hoarding aspect in regards to walls and mines. Hoarding those just doesn’t work(it’s basically all or nothing), and spending a ton of research points on them aint a good idea either.
There was no building drop in 1.87 because buildings were not limited in 1.87 except for barricades, mines, and sticky webs, which there were drops for.
In regards to preferring random building drops, I don’t. Regarding survival, I actually don’t care for the limitation on buildings due to the low starting number. In campaign, I like the limitations and hoarding aspect which allows for the exploration and lack of exploitation I mentioned earlier. However, in survival you cannot hoard from stage to stage since survival is just one long stage. Starting with only one limited tech and getting another only when a boss attacks amounts to getting just 5, the max for droid factories after all the bosses have attacked which doesn’t occur for roughly an hour. If the starting number were increased, just for survival, then I think it would be better, but as it is now, I don’t really enjoy survival. I believe this is primarily due to the limitations benefits on gameplay being directly linked to the hoarding aspect. Since survival doesn’t have the hoarding aspect the limitations feel somewhat out of place.
In regards to hoarding mines/barricades. I disagree. I have never encountered a situation that really required all the barricades/mines to succeed. Granted using lots makes the stage easier, but it’s not necessary to beat the stage. Any setup can be refined and improved to require less barricades/mines and thus allow for the hoarding from stage to stage.
In addition I’m still have performance issues on survival after ~16min. so that doesn’t help the enjoyment factor either.
Wow, the survival thing sounds pretty bummer.
I haven’t played it much since earlier versions, but that sounds awful (an HOUR for a decent amount of tech!?).
The reason I would like more walls is that 20 units is good for about one use in one small choke-point(maps usually have multiple approaches to your base). The problem if you want more than 20 is that you have to pretty much not use ANY at all for a level or two, just so that you can a have a decent amount for one level, doesn’t seem like a good trade, I’ve said it before but it’s like starving yourself for 2 days just so you can have a full meal on the third.
Why do you only have twenty?
The trick with barricades in regards to hoarding is you need more than just the first set. You need at least two preferably more to hoard well. I always research up to titanium sometimes nanomesh. Once these are researched the hoarding becomes a lot easier since you have access to a lot more barricades each stage.
Well I usually only researched up to steel, as there are tons of other things I find more important. Pre-nerf concrete and steel did the job of slowing em down and creating temporary checkpoints just fine (obviously not anymore though).
Seriously though why has no-one spoken up about survival? There was that one other guy who said using rockets didn’t work anymore but that’s it? Cas survival should not be even *more* tech limited than campaign and endless, at least make it equal somehow. Active limit?
I’m more curious as to when this is actually releasing on Steam. Mar. 7 has come and gone, with no revised ETA. No store page, no forum, no news, just silence.
I also found the pricing rant a bit ballsy. While I don’t agree with price, it also doesn’t affect me. But to insult the haters took some guts. There aren’t a lot of devs that insult their fanbase, and survive the process. dennis dyack(sp?) comes to mind.
They’re not fans though… anyone who reckons $15 is too much for Revenge of the Titans is just never going to be a lot of value to us. We only survive by people who lay down money to help us make games.
Also, most of my insulting was levelled at the bunch of people on Reddit whose comments largely consisted of “this game doesn’t look like it’s worth a shit anyway” and “there are a million better tower defense games” and “you can play this for free in Flash” and so on 🙂
…oh, and Steam: well, it’s uploaded, but they’ve not replied to my last email so they must have gone home.
thanks for the clarification. i didn’t read into the background, and just saw the rant.
and i’ll patiently waiting for the game to show up on steam. thanks for the great product!
what?!?! this is hands down the best looking, awesomest, tower defense game ever. i understand it’s not quite in that category, but it still wins it. worth every penny.
Hey Cas, just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. RotT is a great game and you should be proud. That is all 🙂
A quick search for RotT on Steam comes up with a ‘Monkey Island’ game! LOL!
@ Sweenish – Cas is correct, that reddit post does contain a lot of people with negative views about the game (and pretty unfair ones, particularly those who likened it to a) just another tower defense game, and b) those who liken it to a flash game….. sometimes ignorance makes me chuckle!) who clearly weren’t gonna buy the game (regardless of price)
@ Sherfumarcus – it’s not as bad as SOME people would have you believe!
@ Sylen, you should stop being pissy and just admit to everyone that your just mad because you cant spam a gizillion lasers etc during your game anymore, or as you like to coin it ‘experimenting’ but the fact remains that you still can try out different tech/turret combinations, the only difference now is that you’ll have to wait a few levels to do so and you’ll have to be more careful. The tech isn’t hindered in any way….so, I disagree with you, he didn’t confuse ‘exploiting’ for ‘exploring’ – YOU did! …
Earlier on, Brett wrote a great post that thematically perfectly explained a reason for why the current heavy weapon limitation is in place (tied in to the RotT fictional universe) and Cas has clearly explained why this limitation was necessary for the game.
The game is FAR more interesting now (and less passive) unless you’d prefer to ‘watch’ a game than ‘play’ it.
AND THERE’S STILL NEW TECH TO COME, and trust me, that’ll open up a whole host of new strategies (as well as being the proverbial ‘icing on the cake’ regarding balance)
Nice assumption buddy. You wanna accuse people of exploitation? In a single-player game where it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to you anyway?
It’s funny how it there wasn’t any talk of “exploits” or balance problems being discussed until Cas changed the balance and said there was (now all the ardent fanboys agree).
Oh, and hey remind me what the last planet is like? I only ever got up to saturn with all my cheating ways guess, guess I’m doing the million laser strat wrong.
Hows that Steam ETA Cas?
Hey all keep your hair on, it’s only a game! Sylen is slightly grumpy because I took away a few sweeties (heh, he’ll be even more grumpy when he sees 1.80.10) but eventually will come to admit that sweeties taste nicer when you get them a bit less often!
Sigh, this is what being a dad does to you.
It’s uploaded on Steam, I’ve tried it out and… there’s a bit of a stability issue on windows. The first few times I tried to launch it, it crashed, for no known reason, before the loading screen even came up, with a native Java error. Then it just started working. Clearly not a great result so I’m going to have to investigate.
Oh god, I’m afraid… what did you do?
I was/am getting over the changes thanks to 1.89.
please no more hard limits.. remember that earlier talk we had?
(I was grumpy because of the ridiculous accusation more than anything)
I’m not seeing it on steam. Is there a upload wait period? How did you try it out on steam?
Is RotT only uploaded for the European market on Steam? I still see no listing in the North American marketplace. Is it possible there is a delay being ported over to the other regional Steam markets? Or is the copy you are working on some sort of internal developer build on Steam used to test the final release before it reaches the public?
I get to see the “hidden” one as I’m a Steam developer. I’m just testing it.
🙂 Someones a bit touchy aren’t they?!
…feeling defensive, and resorting to name-calling? That’s funny!
Here, have a sweet if it’ll shut you up 😉
Namecalling? what? was it “fanboy”?
Don’t tell me your ashamed to admit it 😉
Look I’m good with arguing, just as long as it’s a worthwhile subject with no petty attacks from either side.
Deal?
Calling someone a fanboy is stating that they’ll agree with everything the developer does (in this case gameplay changes) but the simple truth is theres been plenty of times when I’ve disagreed with changes to the game ; for example when turrets were changed from manually reloaded to auto-loaded/research became free… at the time I thought this might have an adverse effect on the game, but only because I’d gotten used playing it like that.
Now I understand that it was a good decision on the developers part…. so that makes me a fanboy, according to you!
Likewise, disagreeing with what you say also makes me a fanboy…. If you read my first post at the top of this page, you’ll see that I expressed some concern about the new change (especially with regard to making the game too difficult for newbies) so that must make me a fanboy, even though I reserved judgement until I actually played it…. oh wait, I must be a fanboy.. because you say so.
I reckon half of you are stalkers too 🙂
Two fanboys walk into a bar. *rimshot*
Come on guys, kiss and make up.
c’mon guys, group hug! we all love killing titans here.
🙁 Still no sign of RotT on Steam, just comes up with Escape From Monkey Island everytime I do a search…..
and speaking of monkeys, that’s exactly what I couldn’t give regarding petty arguments/flame wars; this is meant to be feedback/discussion on this game, not bragging about how good at arguing you are – save that for the playground…
I’m just testing a patch to fix the instant startup crash it was experiencing.
Is there any chance of adding another gameplay mode without the limitations on units for those of us who loved the previous gameplay style? I know you are considering making version 1.80.7 or some variation of that build available to the public, which would be great. But if you decide to not go that route, could a new ‘Free Play’ mode be implemented into RotT where the unit restrictions are removed?
There doesn’t need to be a leaderboard or campaign mode or anything attached; just the ability to do crazy setups with turrets, factories, mines, et cetera. For example, the player has the ability to blanket the landscape with mines, or build mass droid factories, or even find out how effective a heavy laser turret would be with eight scanners and 8 batteries. Enemies could be spawned normally with increasing difficulty, or allow the user to set parameters for each wave of invaders. Maybe have a variation of the sandbox mode without the limitations of unit production and unit placement.
As for the whole exploitation argument, how do you exploit yourself? The only person affected in a single player game such as this is the player. Strategies such as mass droid armies or a super turret cluster were a ton of fun for me when playing RotT. Sure, there are those who dislike using strategies where there is very little risk in losing or dislike sitting back and watching an AI vs AI battle take place (mass droids). But that is the beauty of it, you aren’t forced to use those strategies. And by limiting it to another game mode, there is no interference with the campaign or online leaderboards.
I can appreciate the need for balance in the game so buyers of RotT do not get bored and move on in a day or two. That could potentially lead to bad word of mouth and impede on the sale numbers of future products. However, I myself much preferred the play style of 1.80.7 to the current builds, and was greatly saddened by the loss of my copy of that build (corrupted storage medium) and the inability to re-download that version.
Just food for thought.
I’ve started from scratch with the new changes. I can cope with the free research because although planning buying strategies was fun, more often than not you got pyrhic victories which lead you into an spire of fail and bankrupt.
I can appreciate as well the automation of refineries or turrets, although I was got used to an ultra-quick-click on buildings to reload or collect.
But what I don’t like is a minor change you did with the shadowy edges. I find difficult to see where the titans come from, because I tend to place turrets on the very limits of the maps, preventing any further advance. In the first levels I almost didn’t see any titan just hearing them explode. Is there any idea to make this fog of war optional or to regulate its value?
And I would like to see more game-styles because I think this game has potential for more. A simply but interesting is a pure tower defense with a limited amount of funding or buildings or techs to choose in advance. Then you simply plan and put your buildings before releasing the titans and see if your arrangement is effective enough, or the titans go through with no mercy and you cannot do anything but see the havoc.
Oh, you mean Gratuitous Space Battles? That game is kinda fun.