i hope that soon there will be a system so you can look at what creatures ability's are and plan out what you are going to go for before you start the round
Fun first run, "Bow to the Empress", but I'll definitely be playing some more to get a proper feel for the game and be able to give better feedback. For example, been a while since I played Tower Escape so I don't remember the units from some floors, so I can imagine the confusion for new players..
I tried the update and I still have that issue with fighting the same people. I took on a team called "The Imaginative Cheeks" 3 times in a row and they eliminated me from the game.
I will say the relic system adds lots of options and I'm quite interested in what other sorts of relics you have in mind. Do you have any you'll share that will be in future versions?
I'll look into this some more. Are you playing on the web or the windows exe (they actually have slightly different matchmaking algos, although this shouldn't happen in either). Part of the issue could also be that since I've updated the version in the latest patch, it can only match against teams created with that new version. As the game is played more, the pool of matches will get bigger.
The relics I have already planned out are mostly about boosting effects in-combat. I'd like to make sets of relics that enhance all of the major gameplay strategies (tall scaling, wide scaling, summoning, death effects, sniping), as well as that add new elements. In addition to the shop cost scaling relics in now, I'll either be adding relics and/or possibly other minions that scale the stats of minions in the shop. I also haven't thought this totally through yet, but I have an idea to make "magic items" that are available in the relic selection but equip on a specific minion.
I'd also like to add Curses, which act like negative Relics, or possibly have both positive and negative effects. I'm not sure exactly how or when these will get handed out though.
I always play on the web version. I refresh the page and then click the game button.
Could you go into more detail about how match making works?
If I run the game a good 40 times right now, does that mean each of those teams is in the pool? How does it decide if I'll encounter them?
Is there any sort of special exceptions for teams that have lots of draws? That's actually probably a factor in this. I play with risky strategies and often double KO the last foe, so I end up playing more games than average.
The primary matchmaking system is that the game queries our server looking for a team that: has the same number of rounds/hearts/wins, is in the same room, and is not the team you just played in the last round. Both versions work the same way in this respect.
If this lookup fails, then the exe version actually has an extra step. When you launch the game, it creates a cache of a few hundred recent teams, and looks for a match among these as well. This is mostly to allow offline play, which is why the web version doesn't bother, as it's kind of an expensive operation, but if there's not a lot of teams uploaded yet then this can happen frequently.
There's also a third condition if it's not able to find a team this way (which should only really happen on the web), where it falls back to a cache of teams that is included in the game build (one purpose of this is to ensure that if the game servers are ever shut down, or you're playing an offline version that has never connected to the internet at all, the game is still playable).
Finally there's a fallback where it creates a fake team, which will have a name starting with "The Fake ..." and you won't see their stats displayed. This is mostly for development purposes so that an opponent can be created when I increase a version number for the first time, but a player could technically encounter it if they're the first to make it to very late rounds in the game where there's no other teams to match.
The primary matchmaker system shouldn't ever give you the same team twice, so it's likely that you're falling into the third condition if you're playing on the web. Since there's not a lot of data there, it makes sense you'd see the same teams repeatedly. Once there's more data from people playing the game, this problem should fix itself. If you happen to see the issue again, take note whether or not the wins & hearts of your opponent exactly match yours. If they don't, then you've fallen into one of the backup conditions.
Regarding having a lot of draws, there's no specific handling of this, but the later your round number gets, the less data there is to match you against, so it's also far more likely to fall into the backup conditions where the matchmaking is less good.
Having played a few dozen more games on the new patches, I like where the game's at.
You adding "better matchmaking" means that the difficulty is way different now.
My stronger teams always end up facing this same team that has an exile squad and a spider as the leader of the pack. So this is actually a soft buff for weak teams because I'm able to complete the game easier with junk squads.
I actually won with a team entirely of zombabies I think.
One issue I found is that it's very possible to end up vs the same team multiple times if nobody exists in the same power bracket. I completed the game with a team that fought 4 battles back to back against the same team.
This'll probably be fixed by more people meeting the right criteria though. Basically when this game has more players.
The most powerful squads are of multiple categories:
People who make lots of cash. Money = power so getting rich means you can buy more upgrades and especially weapons. This is very consistent for getting wins, it just requires you buff up your units with all the extra cash.
Auto upgrading units. They're the same as basically buying a power up, and it happens passively. It's like getting free money and the upgrades are nice. If you survive long enough, you will win. I'd actually suggest lowering the cost of Rocky a bit. He's a bit too expensive to be worth it IMO.
Lucky niche strategies. They're the ones that have the potential to be very powerful, such as summoning decks, but you're at the mercy of RNG. They have a consistency issue.
It would be a huge buff for any of these decks if there were more ways to guarantee you ended up with specific units.
When the stars line up and you're able to do your long summoning combo or get your black knight and wizard setup or any of the other combos, it's golden.
The difference between say, a summoning deck and the above I mentioned is that a summoner needs to upgrade. Your imps and zombies need to be switched out for stronger, better variants. My Scotts, Thieves, and Barries just have to keep grinding and stuff.
Buying more of them enhances what they do but isn't strictly required. You're absolutely worse off if you can't get Zombubbas or Critters because they're so much better than the alternatives.
I think you could fix this by adding more stop-gap variants to the mix. Like if you examine every combo creature in this game, and then you add 1 or 2 extra combo pieces, in the form of an item or creature that could work with them.
With this massive number of synergies, the chances of something working for the player is greatly increased and they'll probably be okay even if they don't get the top tier units.
An example being a class of unit who reacts to receiving health from an ally in battle by doing something positive for that ally. You'd always pick it if you have any unit who gives health. This unit existing buffs all of these units.
The programming language like nature of how your game is constructed lends itself to this. There's all sorts of effects pets create that another one could react to. All of them could be builds if they have something to combo with.
I suppose the word I'm looking for is consistency. It's possible to assemble the pieces of a nice critter summoning deck, with whatever summoner booster allies you pick, but you'll probably take some losses. The deck is slow to assemble and get going.
Lives also have to be considered.
3 or more lives, I'm not afraid. At 2, I start to get worried. At 1, it's crunch time and it's do or die.
A bad summoning deck early could take losses while putting together their squad. But I guess that's part of the game? You did add the heart rooms to heal people if they need it.
Besides what we talked about, I'd suggest:
-A lending system. If the player could go into debt to enhance their team, they have a hail mary when they're on the back foot. It would offer a means for people who are way behind and about to be eliminated the chance to turn things around.
This could manifest as gaining 10 coins now, and losing 10 coins next round. For some teams, it's debatable if there will be a next round. But it would help.
If you decide to, an extra heart could be bought in the same way. Perhaps it's available for 10 coins. So someone has to spend their round stipend to try and buy a life to keeps themselves in the game.
-Give us access to all 5 slots for party members and 3 slots for items from the beginning. If it was completely open from the start, people would have access to more choices and chances to spawn something that fits their build.
-A loyalty mechanic could also be nice. Perhaps every 3 rounds a pet has been with you, they gain one experience point. It massively buffs anyone who decides to keep the same units around. This would greatly benefit you if you keep the baby units from the start around. It adds an extra level of strategy to consider replacing a unit or letting it grow.
-Lastly, a knowledge base that lets someone view all the monsters and at what rounds they spawn would also be helpful. It evens the playing field and cuts any new player's learning curves. If the info is easy to look up, including a list of the items that spawn, possibly even with the % chances they have to appear, then people can do much better planning.
An veteran player will know what works from experience but someone newer will know what all the options are.
Great suggestions and feedback! Some specific responses:
> You adding "better matchmaking" means that the difficulty is way different now.
I think this was actually a little messed up, it should be a bit better now at matching similar teams.
> It would be a huge buff for any of these decks if there were more ways to guarantee you ended up with specific units.
I'm considering increasing the chances of getting a minion in the store that you already have, which would help with finding combines. I just don't want to go too far with this since the clan selection also gives you a strong way to steer toward a seeing a certain unit. Maybe this won't be needed though with relics adding new opportunities for rerolls.
> I think you could fix this by adding more stop-gap variants to the mix. Like if you examine every combo creature in this game, and then you add 1 or 2 extra combo pieces, in the form of an item or creature that could work with them.
The relics should help with this as I begin to add more, too. The idea behind a lot of them is that it should help boost certain combo themes as well.
> This could manifest as gaining 10 coins now, and losing 10 coins next round. For some teams, it's debatable if there will be a next round. But it would help.
This is a great idea for a relic! It could give you X coins now but -1 coin per round.
> -Give us access to all 5 slots for party members and 3 slots for items from the beginning. If it was completely open from the start, people would have access to more choices and chances to spawn something that fits their build.
I think the way it is now is needed, just because with so few options early on, giving more slots would mean you can always pick what you want and every game would start exactly the same (which would be boring).
> -A loyalty mechanic could also be nice. Perhaps every 3 rounds a pet has been with you, they gain one experience point. It massively buffs anyone who decides to keep the same units around. This would greatly benefit you if you keep the baby units from the start around. It adds an extra level of strategy to consider replacing a unit or letting it grow.
I think permanent upgrades accomplish this somewhat, as you always have to weigh selling that minion that's been soaking up bonuses to swap for a fresh one. Relics will also be giving new opportunities for stat bonuses too.
> -Lastly, a knowledge base that lets someone view all the monsters and at what rounds they spawn would also be helpful. It evens the playing field and cuts any new player's learning curves. If the info is easy to look up, including a list of the items that spawn, possibly even with the % chances they have to appear, then people can do much better planning.
10/10 game, friend. I especially like the part where I make the game infinitely harder for myself and other people because all the really overpowered teams I created remain as enemies to face.
I think I've won like 6 times now? And created some real monster teams.
If you guys get rolled by a team that has no adverb, it might be one of mine. I specifically never select a first adverb to differentiate mine from everyone else's.
Something horrifically overpowered but I've never managed to get to do is a team consisting of all Scotts, each armed with an axe. The game usually ends before I can fully equip all the boys, given the axe's relatively low spawn chances, and the fact that it only seems to appear in the enchanted area.
With all the extra cash, you can afford gems to boost the power of your boys. All you have to do really is keep pumping their stats up. They just need enough health to survive a final attack and be the last man standing.
This team would almost always guarantee you at least draw.
I feel if I accomplished that, I'd make a truly run ending team. Imagine being on your last life and running into that.
A team of swampies achieves mostly the same goal, but with less control. And not all of them can receive the power boost. But if you see a swampy, you should just take him.
As far as balance goes, I feel like upgrading troops needs to be cheaper. Or that the cost of troops of the same kind should be cut depending on how many you already have.
There's very few reasons to ever upgrade a troop compared to just buying power or getting a better unit. It's also very inconsistent. Even if you wanted to upgrade a guy, there's no telling when it'll come up.
I feel like if the upgrades provided equivalent value to what gems of the same cost as the unit would provide, then it would be more worth it. Because I could buy gems that raise everyone's stats, or I could buff one guy, inconsistently.
SOME of the abilities are build defining and totally worth upgrading. But not all of them.
> Something horrifically overpowered but I've never managed to get to do is a team consisting of all Scotts, each armed with an axe.
This is a great idea! I think the only situation where this would fail is against a spawner deck (zombie fam or imp/chomp/critter), unless you could really boost their health to outlast it.
> I feel like if the upgrades provided equivalent value to what gems of the same cost as the unit would provide, then it would be more worth it. Because I could buy gems that raise everyone's stats, or I could buff one guy, inconsistently.
This is a good point, it's important to balance the cost of gems vs. upgrades and it may need some tweaking still. Of course since upgrades boost abilities it can be much better still, but as the game stands now I think stats are a bit more powerful than abilities, so it tilts in the favor of gems perhaps. I think the buff-everyone gems may be a bit too cheap, as well (especially compared to the random-two gems).
Relics are going to shift the balance of power a bit, too. They'll have global effects some of which will make certain abilities more powerful.
Please keep the ideas coming! And let me know if you think any specific minions or items are too weak (or strong, but I like a few OP minions, I just don't want any useless ones)!
Yeah, your life is a currency. You can fail 4 times before it's game over. So the time spent trying to get all your Scotts and axes isn't really wasted. Money is the best superpower.
It's just a balancing act of knowing when to stop being greedy while giving yourself a buffer if you run into one of the run ender squads.
I'd say the thief is more efficient than Scott but a lot harder to acquire. HIS upgrades are the ones that REALLY pop off. Like if you get an early thief, then you should just build your entire team around him.
There's a team in the game now where I won by abusing Swampies and a Thief. It's a huge conga line of power and axes.
As far as weak units, I'd like it if you could "evolve" them. Rather than just upgrading a zombaby to be a stronger zombaby, couldn't I have him become a zombie?
Like if I get an imp family member on my team, I obviously should ditch him, regardless of how strong he is, for a critter if one shows up. If my new Critter could consume the previous unit and thus gain his upgrade points and inherent any stat gains he got, if they share the same family line, then upgrades become significantly more worth it.
It adds an element of strategy to the mix.
Also, you could massively buff the summoning decks if there wasn't a cap on the number of units in a battle.
I don't mean letting a player bring infinite guys into a fight. But instead if a unit spawns a guy, that guy isn't wasted if you already have 5 currently alive.
There's some combos that could be seriously nasty if there was a separate summon cap. Perhaps it's something you could buy with cash? If you unlock more "slots" for allies created in battle.
It opens a path for more types of units who have similar abilities. Like a unit who, every 3 rounds, could summon a guy or two.
For players who don't use summons, you could have buyable stuff that takes the place of guys and fits in the same spot. Like siege equipment, or castle walls. The enemy might have to take on your ballista or structure before getting to the dudes.
As far as balance goes right now, it's still a young game. I'll wait to see more combinations and what happens with updates before saying anything about that.
There's a lot of good options here, if you can find them. Part of the strategy in this game, unless you add more ways to guarantee specific units, will be to build a deck based on what's given to you.
After a while a clear meta will form. But I'd rather wait to see what other people do once this game gets a few hundred people who won at it.
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once full version is out will u put it here but for money?
There will be a free version or demo as well as a paid version for sale, both here and on steam.
ok
i hope that soon there will be a system so you can look at what creatures ability's are and plan out what you are going to go for before you start the round
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you can mouse over or click on a creature either in the store or roster to see their ability. Is that not working?
i mean like before you even hit the new game button like a collection thing
Ah yes, definitely a planned feature to be added!
Nice update. I liked the backgrounds.
The update is solid. I don't have much else to add. Looking forward to whatever 4.0 is. Is it going to be anytime soon?
Next update is coming very soon! It will be mostly cosmetic this time, but I promise it will not disappoint!
Ok, thanks for letting me know. I'll play it when it comes out and tell you what I think.
Fun first run, "Bow to the Empress", but I'll definitely be playing some more to get a proper feel for the game and be able to give better feedback. For example, been a while since I played Tower Escape so I don't remember the units from some floors, so I can imagine the confusion for new players..
Great win, 19 rounds, wow that's a long game! I would love to hear your feedback for sure!
I tried the update and I still have that issue with fighting the same people. I took on a team called "The Imaginative Cheeks" 3 times in a row and they eliminated me from the game.
I will say the relic system adds lots of options and I'm quite interested in what other sorts of relics you have in mind. Do you have any you'll share that will be in future versions?
I'll look into this some more. Are you playing on the web or the windows exe (they actually have slightly different matchmaking algos, although this shouldn't happen in either). Part of the issue could also be that since I've updated the version in the latest patch, it can only match against teams created with that new version. As the game is played more, the pool of matches will get bigger.
The relics I have already planned out are mostly about boosting effects in-combat. I'd like to make sets of relics that enhance all of the major gameplay strategies (tall scaling, wide scaling, summoning, death effects, sniping), as well as that add new elements. In addition to the shop cost scaling relics in now, I'll either be adding relics and/or possibly other minions that scale the stats of minions in the shop. I also haven't thought this totally through yet, but I have an idea to make "magic items" that are available in the relic selection but equip on a specific minion.
I'd also like to add Curses, which act like negative Relics, or possibly have both positive and negative effects. I'm not sure exactly how or when these will get handed out though.
I always play on the web version. I refresh the page and then click the game button.
Could you go into more detail about how match making works?
If I run the game a good 40 times right now, does that mean each of those teams is in the pool? How does it decide if I'll encounter them?
Is there any sort of special exceptions for teams that have lots of draws? That's actually probably a factor in this. I play with risky strategies and often double KO the last foe, so I end up playing more games than average.
Does that have anything to do with this?
The primary matchmaking system is that the game queries our server looking for a team that: has the same number of rounds/hearts/wins, is in the same room, and is not the team you just played in the last round. Both versions work the same way in this respect.
If this lookup fails, then the exe version actually has an extra step. When you launch the game, it creates a cache of a few hundred recent teams, and looks for a match among these as well. This is mostly to allow offline play, which is why the web version doesn't bother, as it's kind of an expensive operation, but if there's not a lot of teams uploaded yet then this can happen frequently.
There's also a third condition if it's not able to find a team this way (which should only really happen on the web), where it falls back to a cache of teams that is included in the game build (one purpose of this is to ensure that if the game servers are ever shut down, or you're playing an offline version that has never connected to the internet at all, the game is still playable).
Finally there's a fallback where it creates a fake team, which will have a name starting with "The Fake ..." and you won't see their stats displayed. This is mostly for development purposes so that an opponent can be created when I increase a version number for the first time, but a player could technically encounter it if they're the first to make it to very late rounds in the game where there's no other teams to match.
The primary matchmaker system shouldn't ever give you the same team twice, so it's likely that you're falling into the third condition if you're playing on the web. Since there's not a lot of data there, it makes sense you'd see the same teams repeatedly. Once there's more data from people playing the game, this problem should fix itself. If you happen to see the issue again, take note whether or not the wins & hearts of your opponent exactly match yours. If they don't, then you've fallen into one of the backup conditions.
Regarding having a lot of draws, there's no specific handling of this, but the later your round number gets, the less data there is to match you against, so it's also far more likely to fall into the backup conditions where the matchmaking is less good.
Very interesting. I ran across a team for my final round called "The Fake Stamps."
I can just populate the versions with a bunch of my own teams, then, every time you update. Thanks for explaining how things work.
Having played a few dozen more games on the new patches, I like where the game's at.
You adding "better matchmaking" means that the difficulty is way different now.
My stronger teams always end up facing this same team that has an exile squad and a spider as the leader of the pack. So this is actually a soft buff for weak teams because I'm able to complete the game easier with junk squads.
I actually won with a team entirely of zombabies I think.
One issue I found is that it's very possible to end up vs the same team multiple times if nobody exists in the same power bracket. I completed the game with a team that fought 4 battles back to back against the same team.
This'll probably be fixed by more people meeting the right criteria though. Basically when this game has more players.
The most powerful squads are of multiple categories:
People who make lots of cash. Money = power so getting rich means you can buy more upgrades and especially weapons. This is very consistent for getting wins, it just requires you buff up your units with all the extra cash.
Auto upgrading units. They're the same as basically buying a power up, and it happens passively. It's like getting free money and the upgrades are nice. If you survive long enough, you will win. I'd actually suggest lowering the cost of Rocky a bit. He's a bit too expensive to be worth it IMO.
Lucky niche strategies. They're the ones that have the potential to be very powerful, such as summoning decks, but you're at the mercy of RNG. They have a consistency issue.
It would be a huge buff for any of these decks if there were more ways to guarantee you ended up with specific units.
When the stars line up and you're able to do your long summoning combo or get your black knight and wizard setup or any of the other combos, it's golden.
The difference between say, a summoning deck and the above I mentioned is that a summoner needs to upgrade. Your imps and zombies need to be switched out for stronger, better variants. My Scotts, Thieves, and Barries just have to keep grinding and stuff.
Buying more of them enhances what they do but isn't strictly required. You're absolutely worse off if you can't get Zombubbas or Critters because they're so much better than the alternatives.
I think you could fix this by adding more stop-gap variants to the mix. Like if you examine every combo creature in this game, and then you add 1 or 2 extra combo pieces, in the form of an item or creature that could work with them.
With this massive number of synergies, the chances of something working for the player is greatly increased and they'll probably be okay even if they don't get the top tier units.
An example being a class of unit who reacts to receiving health from an ally in battle by doing something positive for that ally. You'd always pick it if you have any unit who gives health. This unit existing buffs all of these units.
The programming language like nature of how your game is constructed lends itself to this. There's all sorts of effects pets create that another one could react to. All of them could be builds if they have something to combo with.
I suppose the word I'm looking for is consistency. It's possible to assemble the pieces of a nice critter summoning deck, with whatever summoner booster allies you pick, but you'll probably take some losses. The deck is slow to assemble and get going.
Lives also have to be considered.
3 or more lives, I'm not afraid. At 2, I start to get worried. At 1, it's crunch time and it's do or die.
A bad summoning deck early could take losses while putting together their squad. But I guess that's part of the game? You did add the heart rooms to heal people if they need it.
Besides what we talked about, I'd suggest:
-A lending system. If the player could go into debt to enhance their team, they have a hail mary when they're on the back foot. It would offer a means for people who are way behind and about to be eliminated the chance to turn things around.
This could manifest as gaining 10 coins now, and losing 10 coins next round. For some teams, it's debatable if there will be a next round. But it would help.
If you decide to, an extra heart could be bought in the same way. Perhaps it's available for 10 coins. So someone has to spend their round stipend to try and buy a life to keeps themselves in the game.
-Give us access to all 5 slots for party members and 3 slots for items from the beginning. If it was completely open from the start, people would have access to more choices and chances to spawn something that fits their build.
-A loyalty mechanic could also be nice. Perhaps every 3 rounds a pet has been with you, they gain one experience point. It massively buffs anyone who decides to keep the same units around. This would greatly benefit you if you keep the baby units from the start around. It adds an extra level of strategy to consider replacing a unit or letting it grow.
-Lastly, a knowledge base that lets someone view all the monsters and at what rounds they spawn would also be helpful. It evens the playing field and cuts any new player's learning curves. If the info is easy to look up, including a list of the items that spawn, possibly even with the % chances they have to appear, then people can do much better planning.
An veteran player will know what works from experience but someone newer will know what all the options are.
Great suggestions and feedback! Some specific responses:
> You adding "better matchmaking" means that the difficulty is way different now.
I think this was actually a little messed up, it should be a bit better now at matching similar teams.
> It would be a huge buff for any of these decks if there were more ways to guarantee you ended up with specific units.
I'm considering increasing the chances of getting a minion in the store that you already have, which would help with finding combines. I just don't want to go too far with this since the clan selection also gives you a strong way to steer toward a seeing a certain unit. Maybe this won't be needed though with relics adding new opportunities for rerolls.
> I think you could fix this by adding more stop-gap variants to the mix. Like if you examine every combo creature in this game, and then you add 1 or 2 extra combo pieces, in the form of an item or creature that could work with them.
The relics should help with this as I begin to add more, too. The idea behind a lot of them is that it should help boost certain combo themes as well.
> This could manifest as gaining 10 coins now, and losing 10 coins next round. For some teams, it's debatable if there will be a next round. But it would help.
This is a great idea for a relic! It could give you X coins now but -1 coin per round.
> -Give us access to all 5 slots for party members and 3 slots for items from the beginning. If it was completely open from the start, people would have access to more choices and chances to spawn something that fits their build.
I think the way it is now is needed, just because with so few options early on, giving more slots would mean you can always pick what you want and every game would start exactly the same (which would be boring).
> -A loyalty mechanic could also be nice. Perhaps every 3 rounds a pet has been with you, they gain one experience point. It massively buffs anyone who decides to keep the same units around. This would greatly benefit you if you keep the baby units from the start around. It adds an extra level of strategy to consider replacing a unit or letting it grow.
I think permanent upgrades accomplish this somewhat, as you always have to weigh selling that minion that's been soaking up bonuses to swap for a fresh one. Relics will also be giving new opportunities for stat bonuses too.
> -Lastly, a knowledge base that lets someone view all the monsters and at what rounds they spawn would also be helpful. It evens the playing field and cuts any new player's learning curves. If the info is easy to look up, including a list of the items that spawn, possibly even with the % chances they have to appear, then people can do much better planning.
I will definitely be adding this at some point!
10/10 game, friend. I especially like the part where I make the game infinitely harder for myself and other people because all the really overpowered teams I created remain as enemies to face.
I think I've won like 6 times now? And created some real monster teams.
If you guys get rolled by a team that has no adverb, it might be one of mine. I specifically never select a first adverb to differentiate mine from everyone else's.
Something horrifically overpowered but I've never managed to get to do is a team consisting of all Scotts, each armed with an axe. The game usually ends before I can fully equip all the boys, given the axe's relatively low spawn chances, and the fact that it only seems to appear in the enchanted area.
With all the extra cash, you can afford gems to boost the power of your boys. All you have to do really is keep pumping their stats up. They just need enough health to survive a final attack and be the last man standing.
This team would almost always guarantee you at least draw.
I feel if I accomplished that, I'd make a truly run ending team. Imagine being on your last life and running into that.
A team of swampies achieves mostly the same goal, but with less control. And not all of them can receive the power boost. But if you see a swampy, you should just take him.
As far as balance goes, I feel like upgrading troops needs to be cheaper. Or that the cost of troops of the same kind should be cut depending on how many you already have.
There's very few reasons to ever upgrade a troop compared to just buying power or getting a better unit. It's also very inconsistent. Even if you wanted to upgrade a guy, there's no telling when it'll come up.
I feel like if the upgrades provided equivalent value to what gems of the same cost as the unit would provide, then it would be more worth it. Because I could buy gems that raise everyone's stats, or I could buff one guy, inconsistently.
SOME of the abilities are build defining and totally worth upgrading. But not all of them.
Thanks for the awesome feedback, as always!
> Something horrifically overpowered but I've never managed to get to do is a team consisting of all Scotts, each armed with an axe.
This is a great idea! I think the only situation where this would fail is against a spawner deck (zombie fam or imp/chomp/critter), unless you could really boost their health to outlast it.
> I feel like if the upgrades provided equivalent value to what gems of the same cost as the unit would provide, then it would be more worth it. Because I could buy gems that raise everyone's stats, or I could buff one guy, inconsistently.
This is a good point, it's important to balance the cost of gems vs. upgrades and it may need some tweaking still. Of course since upgrades boost abilities it can be much better still, but as the game stands now I think stats are a bit more powerful than abilities, so it tilts in the favor of gems perhaps. I think the buff-everyone gems may be a bit too cheap, as well (especially compared to the random-two gems).
Relics are going to shift the balance of power a bit, too. They'll have global effects some of which will make certain abilities more powerful.
Please keep the ideas coming! And let me know if you think any specific minions or items are too weak (or strong, but I like a few OP minions, I just don't want any useless ones)!
Yeah, your life is a currency. You can fail 4 times before it's game over. So the time spent trying to get all your Scotts and axes isn't really wasted. Money is the best superpower.
It's just a balancing act of knowing when to stop being greedy while giving yourself a buffer if you run into one of the run ender squads.
I'd say the thief is more efficient than Scott but a lot harder to acquire. HIS upgrades are the ones that REALLY pop off. Like if you get an early thief, then you should just build your entire team around him.
There's a team in the game now where I won by abusing Swampies and a Thief. It's a huge conga line of power and axes.
As far as weak units, I'd like it if you could "evolve" them. Rather than just upgrading a zombaby to be a stronger zombaby, couldn't I have him become a zombie?
Like if I get an imp family member on my team, I obviously should ditch him, regardless of how strong he is, for a critter if one shows up. If my new Critter could consume the previous unit and thus gain his upgrade points and inherent any stat gains he got, if they share the same family line, then upgrades become significantly more worth it.
It adds an element of strategy to the mix.
Also, you could massively buff the summoning decks if there wasn't a cap on the number of units in a battle.
I don't mean letting a player bring infinite guys into a fight. But instead if a unit spawns a guy, that guy isn't wasted if you already have 5 currently alive.
There's some combos that could be seriously nasty if there was a separate summon cap. Perhaps it's something you could buy with cash? If you unlock more "slots" for allies created in battle.
It opens a path for more types of units who have similar abilities. Like a unit who, every 3 rounds, could summon a guy or two.
For players who don't use summons, you could have buyable stuff that takes the place of guys and fits in the same spot. Like siege equipment, or castle walls. The enemy might have to take on your ballista or structure before getting to the dudes.
As far as balance goes right now, it's still a young game. I'll wait to see more combinations and what happens with updates before saying anything about that.
There's a lot of good options here, if you can find them. Part of the strategy in this game, unless you add more ways to guarantee specific units, will be to build a deck based on what's given to you.
After a while a clear meta will form. But I'd rather wait to see what other people do once this game gets a few hundred people who won at it.
I really like the idea of being able to increase the size of your team in-battle, I could probably add that as a relic!