Sureshot^

Join Date 02/2008

Towers

While I and others have picked up on the effectiveness and implementation of towers as they are at present, here's a summary of issues with towers from my perspective:

- Hero abilities affecting buildings -

I mentioned this in my first impressions post, and it's probably the most major problem with towers for me at the moment. The fact that abilities can affect towers makes them extremely easy to take down. With the Torch Bearer, for example, you can simply freeze a tower, stay out of range of any other adjacent towers and solo it yourself. This is most effective when you get reduced cooldowns (for chain freezing).

In a game yesterday at around level 12 I managed to solo one of the mines by myself by using this method. Granted, you don't always get this opportunity when opposition heroes come down to defend, but in any case it should simply not be this easy to take down towers. In DotA (stop groaning) abilities do not affect towers so you would not be able to exploit them in this manner.

Even in the early game where soloing is risky, freezing towers allows your creeps to attack them with much more freedom.

- Range too low -

Tower range needs to be upped a touch. As Regulus you can sit out of range and snipe them to your heart's content. Increasing range would mean that firstly, it is no longer possible to simply pick them off from afar, and secondly that you will need to wait for creep waves to begin attacking before beginning yourself.

In DotA, the tower range is implemented in a way that means you cannot sit out of range and take them down with your auto-attack - if you go in on your own, the tower will be able to hit you. However, if you wait and attack only after your creeps have engaged, the tower will not attack you until you are clearly the main damage dealer. This means that you have to rubber-band in and out of range, taking opportunities to attackand falling back when the tower has designated you as the main threat and moved focus from the creeps.

- Damage too low -

When a tower attacks you, you really need to feel it. While towers do a relatively acceptable amount of damage in the early stages at the moment, their damage output pales much too quickly as the game progresses.

If a hero is chasing you and you head for the safety of a tower, the chasing hero should really be made to think twice about their pursuit due to the consequences of going within firing range of it. At present, towers neither exhibit this element of safety for allies, nor danger for enemies.

- Graphical size needs increasing -

This has been picked up upon in a couple of other threads, but towers are tiny at the moment. They should be dominating structures on the battlefield.

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It's very good points, and at the moment there seems to be a slight unclarity to what roles the towers fill. Are they to be feared by enemies and revered by allies, or is it more of a creepkiller, stand in the way, pacing mechanism?

That does also bring the interesting point since The Rook can summon towers. If the towers are intended to be the first rather than the second his summonable towers might needs to be weaker, the cooldown increased or such. Since we don't yet know how the other heroes looks like, but his "ultimate" could easily be a skill that helps you dominate a game if towers overall becomes too powerful.

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Well, the Rooks towers are obviously not even as potent as the stock towers even at this early stage, and thats certainly for the best. I'll agree that the pacing does feel a tad off at the very beginning of the game though, as Towers are barely an detriment to attack and once the Catapulters come out even the significantly more formidable forts go down FAST. Now, I understand that this was to some degree a decision made by the designers, that once the catapult beasts enter the field you are starting to reach the true "pushing" phase of the game. The real thing that throws me off about the pacing is that the catapult beasts are SOOO much more powerful than the creeps that have come before (dealing what... 8, 9, and 60ish damage respectively compared to 250ish) that it's almost a little off-putting. I'm sure we can find some sort of happy medium between creep/tower/game pacing that feels just right before release though.

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Towers do seem underpowered at first. It does give a unique pacing element to the game though. After many games I have come to love the way towers work. For instance a level 7 demigod can't simply run down the middle and take out the towers. After gaining power you can do substantial damage though. Catapult creeps seem a little overpowered and may simply be a gimmick put in the game now while the developers work out other pacing methods(without cats the games would last too long). I think we'll see changes in the role of towers as the game progesses but I really hope they do not turn into what towers are in DotA. I actually made a suggestion about rebuilding towers in the idea forum.

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For me, i like it as the way it is now, Demigods suppose to be the one who claim the throne, why he/she should lose to a mere tower? (RPG reason). And also This way the tower is just a "support" role, not the main character of the game and you can't just stay in the the tower range to be safe from enemies Demigods, I hate it when ppl run away and keep staying under the tower for protection this would make the game faster and more of engagement and fighting(more logical reason). And BTW Sniper in DotA and attack tower out of its range. Still i think we can upgrade towers in the later build of the game thus may have increase range or damage or HP upgrades.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

- Range too low -
Tower range needs to be upped a touch. As Regulus you can sit out of range and snipe them to your heart's content. Increasing range would mean that firstly, it is no longer possible to simply pick them off from afar, and secondly that you will need to wait for creep waves to begin attacking before beginning yourself.
In DotA, the tower range is implemented in a way that means you cannot sit out of range and take them down with your auto-attack - if you go in on your own, the tower will be able to hit you. However, if you wait and attack only after your creeps have engaged, the tower will not attack you until you are clearly the main damage dealer. This means that you have to rubber-band in and out of range, taking opportunities to attackand falling back when the tower has designated you as the main threat and moved focus from the creeps.

You didn't pay attention when selecting your Demigod. Regulus is supposed to outrange towers. That his entire Demigod gimmick, along with minelaying.

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Yeah right you are, it does say in the Hero's description. In this case, I think it's a bad idea with the current implementation of the towers (especially since I would argue that the Torch Bearer is currently better at taking on towers than Regulus right now).

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In fact, it doesn't say he should necessarily 'outrange' towers & structures, just that he can snipe them from a distance.

Quoting Zeneroth,

reply 4

Still i think we can upgrade towers in the later build of the game thus may have increase range or damage or HP upgrades.

That will be cool if so.

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Good point here guys. I think the towers are too easy to take down. Also i am playing the Rook and the tower he puts up as was stated above come down way to easy. Here is an idea also to improve on the towers. I think there hit points should be increased and they should be somewhat residtant to magic. And what would be cool is if they had towers that utilize Cold and Fire elemental damage.

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Towers should deal more damage, IMO.

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FYI, Sniper in DotA can outrange towers...

good points though, well made

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Yeah remembered that after having a think later; indeed Regulus is similar in that respect. The strength of towers in DotA and the effectiveness of the Sniper against them does make it a slightly different situation though.

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Towers actually do do a lot of damage..

try taking one down with an enemy demigod there attacking you.

they could use a slight fire speed increase, but that's about it. I don't think super strong turtle defense towers is what this game is about.

You're SUPPOSED to be able to solo a tower if there is no enemy Demigod there.

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I agree with increased attack speed on towers.

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Regulus doesn't outrange towers until you take one or two of his range upgrade skills, no?

And doesn't Torchbearer's description say that he is good at helping creeps down towers with his freeze?

I do like that towers don't suffer from stun effects. Specifically, the Rook rock roll doesn't do anything other than hurt them.

However, I do think that making towers a bit bigger, perhaps with increased power to go along with the other periodic force upgrades (this should affect both light towers and archer towers). The Rook towers should remain smaller and weaker than regular towers.

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Inno, cant agree with that statement.

Why should a low lvl demigod be able to destroy a big holy tower of light? Sure.. ya can say, because we're demigod we're powerful. Ok, so why cant i just kill everything on the map with a sneeze? RPG shouldnt rule the game flow / balance. Shouldnt be vice-versa too, but its definitly mre important.

And the towers, like they are now, are not THAT bad, but could use at least some extra range. Btw, the Archertowers are more dangerous than the normal ones^^

Also i think normal spawning creeps shouldnt outrange the towers, Never-ever. Specially in Demigods where creeps are absolut underpowered against everything else - which is ok, i like the way it works right now. But the catapultosaurus (right name?) got to much range, also they could lower their damage to from 250 to 150.

@Porphy+others

Yes, Torchy's description is to help due to his freezing skills. But they endure to long. 15sec is an insane long time. 3 Demis just wreck a tower in 15sec twice without any problems. Honestly it shouldnt be like that. If pushing shall be important, then the defenses shouldnt be useless. If it should feel more epic than Dota.. why everything besides the Demigods is totaly crappy? The creeps dont matter, also doesnt lasthitting/denying (which is good), the towers dont really matter.. but the focus isn't on 1on1 Demigod fights?.. what else then?

If nothing is important, besides Kill opponent Demigod => Rush his base solo as fast as possible, where is the strategic part? Mkay, maybe we've to wait for Generals. Now, that i mentioned the Generals i could talk for hours, because this is the part of Demigod i expect to be the most funny one but also the hardest to balance.. ahr.. stop, thats another topic

So long,

Aspartem

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I think towers are fine early on, but need to scale a little bit better towards late game. Later on with the right gear and abilities, you can solo a tower in soomething about ten seconds with no damage to yourself.

I would also like to see catapultasaurii weakened. Right now, I find them to be most threatening creep by far.

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Quoting Reaver,

reply 10

FYI, Sniper in DotA can outrange towers...

good points though, well made

yes sniper can outrange tower but only when their is creep who give los acsue without creep you have the fog who hide the tower and the only way to see it is by getting closer

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In fact, it doesn't say he should necessarily 'outrange' towers & structures, just that he can snipe them from a distance.

He has the durability of wet paper towels. It's the only way he can.

Why should a low lvl demigod be able to destroy a big holy tower of light? Sure.. ya can say, because we're demigod we're powerful.

You need to level up a bit to even have a prayer of doing it, and at low levels it takes an interminable amount of time. It's not as easy as you make it out to be.

Their entire point is that they're glass cannons. Perfect demi fodder if one can get there, but dangerous otherwise. That makes sense, however their health should go down so they truly are vulnerable to other creeps. I'm thinking minotaur levels.

It's late game when things are decided, but I agree. Maybe make a few extra threatening towers for the last few levels of war level?

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Um what is your definition of low level? To me it'd be like under level 5. But i'm guessing you mean level 15 is low level and level 15's shouldn't solo towers..

I don't think the intention is that you need level 25 to win the game. I think it's good that games usually end around level 12-17.

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Nono, low lvl for me is lvl 1~7. And with lvl 7, specially with Rook, i kill the outer towers in 2 charges of 6 seconds, so i need a minute to kill them - alone from full hp, without gettin any damage.

Mid game in demigod is 8-12/13 i'd say.. everything later is lategame, thats how i feel it is right now.

But Kitkun made a good statement: The towers should lvl up the more you progress to the Stronghold of the opponent. So that in relation they're always as tough or only a little less tough than the last one. I'd like that more, since it gives more room for team ups. Now you just wait for a silent moment, rush to a tower at lvl 12-15 and down it before even one hero can teleport to it. Thats not how it meant to be imo.

Well, im gonna fetch somthing to eat now

So long, Aspartem

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If you increase tower range, how far? If you increase it to regulus' top tier range than that makes towers OP since no hero could get within range to use thier ability without getting slammed by a tower. The whole game would turn into tower camping.

I would like the ability to buy some upgrades for your buildings. Damage, armor, something to combat freezing, etc. Things to add more versatility to how you play. That is where this game will really shine. The more versatility the more you prevent there from being any 1 build or team combination to dominate.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

In DotA (stop groaning)

Uh, no.

Quoting ,

quoting post

In DotA

Epic fail.

Try constructing moar points and far, far less DoTA references. Seriously. Everybody with any brains is sick and tired of this attitude that they're clones and anything in one is relevant in any way whatsoever to the other.

I think all that would be needed to make them dangerous is stunned towers can take no damage, and towers prioritise Demigods over creeps.

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Where did I say towers in Demigod should clone their implementation in DotA? I'm simply giving an idea of how the closest matched game to Demigod deals with a situation and which factors are positive from its methods. I'm not sure why this is such a problem.

Similarly, I am sick and tired of people slating DotA just for the sake of it, without any reasons to back up their apparent hatred of it. I'm absolutely interested to hear ways in which elements of DotA can be improved upon, but when the crux of certain posts is 'Demigod isn't DotA so we should disregard anything from it' with no other useful discussion points, no purpose is served. At least you gave one point in addition.

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Towers are good now. If anything they are too op (in early game only..). They shouldn't be very hard to take down as it will encourage campiness

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Hm, Demigods as priority target would be cool. I think the towers should be a little bit a threat. I dont want the possibility to smack a opponent hero at lvl 3-5 right beside his tower, just because that dork-building attacks my wave, while im wacking his beloved hero! <.<

And as i said, if the towers in this game are not important, then it loses alot of strategic depth in my point of view.

So long, Aspartem

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