New Rules to Island defense!

[Krazyyy]

1. I think triple base quad base etc is okay. I find it enjoyable as a builder and a titan. It does suck when you kill early and everyone crams into the base but it is what it is.
2. i do think it should be bannable for someone who is stuck in a seed and leaves the game. titan deserves a minion.
3. suiciding builder when seige is okay.
4. worker block is okay.
5. suiciding builder (noticeably and intentionally) straight to mid or workers straight to mid... obvious ban.
6. i wanna bring up the topic of afking in seed all game ESPECIALLY with out control to anyone. I feel like this ruins the game for builders and titans. for example, if someone at the start of game just goes straight to seed and afk's with out control to anyone. titan comes up and kills them. everyones mad. i feel like afkers should be banned in this situation. why come into a game just to afk. i mean if something comes up atleast give control.
7. i like the idea game should go to 40 mins. thats a great idea and keeps from stalling games.
8. no 30 min gp is fine.

[Burn]

- Initially I was thinking 60min, 50min or 40min, but after playing around a thousand more titan games and builder games, I've decided that I think ANY game past 40min. is too long.

- I have shit to do, sometimes I want to queue for an ID game but I can't because it might drag on to a 90min. game. At least with 40min games I can have a gauge on the maximum time.

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

Giving ID an "end time" would be really bad. There's so many different scenarios that the game in some cases would end where players don't want it to. For example a titan vs multiple bases that he can break but simply doesn't have enough time. It that scenario the developer has now ruined that game and that's simply not an option. To be honest it might cause the opposite effect in that players will stall more and simply always build quad bases for the purpose of making it to the timer. There are better ways to do it and simply forcing a "timed end" is a terribly lazy way.

I've never wrote the following suggestion on forums but it's been discussed in length before. A better way to deal with titan stalling would simply be to give builders a way of constructing a building which gives them gold after the 40min mark. At the 40min mark you get 30g. Simple solution is to add a 30g building that gives 1 gold per sec. In addition to this update the titans shop so as after the 40min mark builders can now buy titans items. More specifically, titan hunters can now buy those items. This method simply works better. Gives titan hunters more utility. Encourages people to use them more and try to gank minions to level them early game. Titan hunters would have 360g at the 45min mark to spend on titan items. Arguably the same amount of gold as the titan except you would/could have 3 hunters with that amount of gold. Just to note, hunters would not drop these items. Personally in addition to this I've said before that finding a way to allow hunters to level outside of minion hunting would be a nice way to scale them from mostly being useless the whole game. Likewise they never really hunt titans. They just sit in bases and kill healing wards. I hope you guys understand how this option is better than simply a "You win!" screen and would still end every game pre 50mins.

@Burn Thoughts?
@Haunt @Hyo @RadiantCrystal This topic went a bit off of what the OP was. Could you just move the whole topic to the ID forums please. Thank you.

[Lynx]

turn id into vampirism? worst idea i've ever heard.

If you want the game to end earlier you have to speed it up, aka harvest resources faster.

[ShadowZz]

Every game in existence is designed from previous games. A comment like that is simply stupid. It's a solution that works and is tested to work whilst not abruptly ending the flow of a game.

Increasing resources does not stop stalling. Worst idea I've ever heard.

[Lynx]

k

[Stealer]

Giving ID an "end time" would be really bad. There's so many different scenarios that the game in some cases would end where players don't want it to. For example a titan vs multiple bases that he can break but simply doesn't have enough time. It that scenario the developer has now ruined that game and that's simply not an option.

Well if he didn't beat the timer, he obviously couldn't have broken all of them.
Like this is staller logic 101, "I could break your base if I only had just a couple more gold", "Naw, your base is easy. I'm just taking my time", etc.

To be honest it might cause the opposite effect in that players will stall more and simply always build quad bases for the purpose of making it to the timer.

If titan hunters + gold towers didn't kept getting nerfed people might actually try to do something besides basing. Considering the game itself recommends making a base it seems silly to chide people for making them.

I've never wrote the following suggestion on forums but it's been discussed in length before. A better way to deal with titan stalling would simply be to give builders a way of constructing a building which gives them gold after the 40min mark. At the 40min mark you get 30g.

Not really. Several builder's don't get hunters. Most builders can't fly & some don't even have blink. Especially with gold tower nerfing good luck killing the titan. So basically (ignoring below part) you now have a base of gold towers. Titan already couldn't break your base; now he really can't. Still at square one.

Simple solution is to add a 30g building that gives 1 gold per sec. In addition to this update the titans shop so as after the 40min mark builders can now buy titans items. More specifically, titan hunters can now buy those items.

Again have fun getting hunter to mound and also have fun chasing the titan. He is faster.

Titan hunters would have 360g at the 45min mark to spend on titan items.

So 5 minutes after game wouldn't ended with the other suggestion you can finally start to try to end the game? Much better.

Arguably the same amount of gold as the titan except you would/could have 3 hunters with that amount of gold.

Well, strong assumption on there being 3 builders. Not every stalling game comes down to a 3+v1. Does this mean if its just you and a waller you get to rub it out for another 2 hours?

Personally in addition to this I've said before that finding a way to allow hunters to level outside of minion hunting would be a nice way to scale them from mostly being useless the whole game.

Oh boy, I can't wait to get another +10 stats on my hunter for making it to level 16!

Likewise they never really hunt titans.

Because they are weak as shit even after pumping 180g into it.

and would still end every game pre 50mins.

Much debatable.

Could you just move the whole topic to the ID forums please. Thank you.

Is there a problem with a suggestion being under Suggestions?
afaik threads only get moved for being wildly out of place.


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k

Solid discussion. Busy avoiding rapugees?

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Legit no reason to ban people for leaving in seeds. Let neco deal with it as part of the map. Forcing somebody to stay (potentially minutes) until they die is just toxic.

[Burn]

No shadowzz, that'd just stall the game even more.

"Legit no reason to ban people for leaving in seeds. Let neco deal with it as part of the map. Forcing somebody to stay (potentially minutes) until they die is just toxic."

I've never left in a seed as a builder. Well, mainly it's because it's a stupid thing to do, since most titans have MH, pearl or common sense. Furthermore, for the times I do, I always ask for help to get out of the seed instead of leaving the game.

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

@Stealer Didn't intend that short paragraph to be scrutinized down to the details but hell okay.
@Burn Just take a minute to think about it. It can work and be fun at the same time giving a goal for the builders rather than an end point. It also gives people like yourself an opportunity to show your skill in both ending the game and throughout it, read ahead and I explain that it more detail. It's near the bottom after the 7th quote if you want to skip ahead but I'd rather you read it all.

Side Note: This is a long post. All points were addressed. Please do me a favor because I took some time to write it and don't skip bits or skim it because you'll miss the point. So go grab a drink, take 5 minutes and read it through. Don't skip because you'll miss a point. I tried to shorten it but to be honest it can't get much shorter and still be "detailed". Apologies for wall of text, tried to split it up to make it easier on your eyes. Be open minded,

Well if he didn't beat the timer, he obviously couldn't have broken all of them.
Like this is staller logic 101, "I could break your base if I only had just a couple more gold", "Naw, your base is easy. I'm just taking my time", etc.

I agree with that logic. But the problem is that ID has so many different situations that it becomes a problem of deciding when the game should "end". In my opinion pre 35 mins doesn't necessarily mean stall. The 5 minute buffer is simply there for a "just in case" scenario.

If titan hunters + gold towers didn't kept getting nerfed people might actually try to do something besides basing. Considering the game itself recommends making a base it seems silly to chide people for making them.

Things need to be nerfed for the game to be balanced. On the topic of the games recommendations - That's rather an issue with the game concept. Easiest way to explain this is that if a builder can solo base at the 15min mark with 30 super towers then 2 builders can create a base of equal strength in half as much time. Or 3 in a 3rd of that time. The numbers in the example aren't right but I hope you understand the point there. Bases with multiple builders will inherently be stronger. Another example is that some builders have extremely strong towers in exchange for weaker walls. But having another person who can base removes the weakness and only leaves the positives. My only point with this is that the game concept itself is the problem. Either make it so as everyone can only base solo or with 2 people max and no more. Or make it so as people have to base with multiple players and can't solo base at all without it being an "easy break". Having the best of both worlds inherently makes bases with multiple builders a lot stronger than those without. A lot of people's defense to this has been the higher chance of a nuke or bounce nuke. The reason for quad bases not being a problem can never be "maybe I can nuke them rather than sieging".

Not really. Several builder's don't get hunters. Most builders can't fly & some don't even have blink. Especially with gold tower nerfing good luck killing the titan. So basically (ignoring below part) you now have a base of gold towers. Titan already couldn't break your base; now he really can't. Still at square one.

You're missing the point, the builder itself at the 40min mark could build a building for 30g to gain 1g per sec. 3 options.
Option 1 - Build gold towers - builders choice to not end game so the titan in this case isn't stalling as he doesn't want to die and the builder clearly doesn't want the game to end considering the other 2 options.
Option 2 - Builder has a titan hunter - Builder starts buying items for the hunter (addressing that problem later in post) and the titan hunter is eventually stronger than the titan and can solo kill him. Side note: the builder could build more than one mine i.e after 1 minute he could have 3 mines and be getting 180g per minute.
Option 3 - Builder has no hunter - Builder starts buying items for his builder and the builder eventually out scales the titan. Side note: the builder could build more than one mine i.e after 1 minute he could have 3 mines and be getting 180g per minute.
Another solution to the hunter problem would simply be an upgrade in the newly acquired building which changes your builder to a hero type.

Again have fun getting hunter to mound and also have fun chasing the titan. He is faster.

Solution to buying items - Let the builder build his own shop after the 40min mark that addresses this problem. In addition to that having an item that slows the movement speed of the attacked unit by 40% would not be an issue.

So 5 minutes after game wouldn't ended with the other suggestion you can finally start to try to end the game? Much better.

Timing has already been addressed to prevent game ruining via mechanics. The games going to end pretty quickly when you have a titan hunter or builder toming with 5g tomes for +15dmg or +100 hp. It atleast gives them the gratification of killing the titan rather than a "congratulations you made a building on the island you just landed on and the big bad man simply dissapeared".

Well, strong assumption on there being 3 builders. Not every stalling game comes down to a 3+v1. Does this mean if its just you and a waller you get to rub it out for another 2 hours?

Having no hunters problem already addressed.

Oh boy, I can't wait to get another +10 stats on my hunter for making it to level 16!

You know the stats can be customized right? The numbers would be tweaked at a later date for balance (irrelevant right now). The point was that having a way to level them gives builders who are good at ID something they should be doing in the majority of cases where titan gets a minion and you know sit and lumber or make a base. Increases the skill cap of builder via allowing them the option to do things to help the game and themselves but also isn't required. Allows people who are high tier players to be doing extra things within the game which gives them an advantage. Pretty sure everyone can agree that the difference between "average" ID players and high tier players isn't that great (full det lumber bases, effective tower upgrading, just game knowledge in general rather than "skill", "micro management", "effective use").

Because they are weak as shit even after pumping 180g into it.

Titan hunters are weak and useless, completely agree. This *could* change that or at least be a move in that direction.

Much debatable.

Sure it's debatable games would end pre 50mins but if you're getting 180g per min for 8mins 45secs and you still haven't ended then it shouldn't be long after - Note: (Ignoring build times to make a point, I recognize math may be off by a hundred but meh) Starting at 40mins - build mine 1 - 30secs later you have enough for mine 2 - 15 secs later you have enough for mine 3 - 8 mins 45 secs worth of 180g per min is 1575 gold by the 50min mark, give or take a hundred or so. Pretty sure your gonna be stronger than a titan that's only had 300ish gold (debatable but let's be realistic, you can make more mines, he has 0 income, I'm sure someone can post the "best" method which will have like 3000+ gold by 50mins).

Is there a problem with a suggestion being under Suggestions?
afaik threads only get moved for being wildly out of place.

The original suggestion is for a rule change. Pretty sure everyone agrees that it's not going to happen. Every other ID discussion is in the ID forums. No reason to keep this here. I really don't understand why it's a problem to move it where all the other ID suggestions are, or I don't know, the "4.0.0 development" forums for example....

Agreed with last bits.

[Luna]

actually you're wrong.

[Stealer]

actually you're wrong.

Oh, I guess I didn't look at it that way.

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The numbers in the example aren't right but I hope you understand the point there. Bases with multiple builders will inherently be stronger.

Ofc, it's a team game. Teams playing together should be stronger than teams not playing together.

My only point with this is that the game concept itself is the problem.

I don't think the concept is that bad. IMO the real problem is the skill gap between a lot of the players. wotw was basically a guaranteed kill in pubs but waste of 30g in ih (well 9d era). Walling out wasn't a commonly used strategy (besides blitzkrieg which I believe was after 9d) but can easily win you games in 4.0.
Like if players consistent quad bases you could balance it around that much easier than if the game was a mix. Although you could also just balance it around triple bases and let people who make poor decisions pay the price. Triple basing always has space issues though so it isn't without it's own problems.

Either make it so as everyone can only base solo or with 2 people max and no more.

So what happens to the mag when Burn (gnoll) bases with Beeznukah (Drae)? Does he have to just afk in a seed / leave? The probability of an odd number of people being alive seems pretty decent to me.
This also goes back to my earlier comment, it's a 10v1 game and you're punishing the 10 for playing together. Do you not feel that is a poor choice? I feel this would be as if in Dota if you got close to 2 of your allies the enemy immediately got vision of the 3 of you. It's just silly to punish team play.

Solution to buying items - Let the builder build his own shop after the 40min mark that addresses this problem. In addition to that having an item that slows the movement speed of the attacked unit by 40% would not be an issue.

It atleast gives them the gratification of killing the titan rather than a "congratulations you made a building on the island you just landed on and the big bad man simply dissapeared".

I don't understand the big difference between giving the builder an 'op' shop at 40 minutes vs a flag.
Honestly, after an hour long game of stalling titan idc if I win because titan has a poor internet. Same applies to big bad man disappearing.
And you still run into the same problems as with the flag. Titan broke 3 of the last 4 bases but took so long that base4 now has a 500 damage titan hunter.

Regarding the bulk of your post. You added new ideas such as 5g tomes / shops / buff to hunters. You're adding in a ton of stuff so that the titan is killable. I don't doubt that if you add in all this stuff (which is mentioned after my original post) that you can kill the titan. But I don't get why I should need to wait 10 minutes of farming gold to kill titan (don't wanna try to kill him after 5 cause then titan hunter might fail and rez time is so long).

[ShadowZz]

Regarding the bulk of the first part about team play etc. I agree with you but ID needs to be focused on team play entirely rather than trying to promote teamplay and then still making soloist's strong because it simply doesn't work. There's 10 people vs 1, there's no reason why they shouldn't "have" to work together to win rather than trying to solo and whine about 1 person destroying the game through feed etc etc.

Middle bit - The difference is that the player isn't simply making a building. Waiting 10 mins and then gg screen comes up. Actually having to hunt and kill the titan would be a much cleaner and better way of doing it. Likewise a lot of people hate games where titan dies at 30+ mins and your base never got attacked. Just feels like a complete waste of time. At least this way the hunter becomes the hunted and the player stalling is punished by the players whos game they are now ruining. This method doesn't leave it open to scenarios where there's a dead base and the game ends just before he kills the flag even though the base is dead. This way it gets to a point where the game should be over and then starts to shift quickly into the builders being in a position to end the game themselves. In addition to that it gives them a choice to end the game or continue the base defense. Allowing players to choose whether they want a < 45min game or a 1 hour + game is better in general. If one player doesn't agree then he can end the game himself. If all agree they can mutually continue. All I'm saying is it fixes the stalling problem for players who don't like it and doesn't affect players who don't mind super late game end game bases. Sure titan will probably never break a base receiving so much gold but if he's enjoying the game and the builders choose not to kill him then why should we end their game. After all it's about having fun. It's a win/win for both sides.

In regards to the last bit - You've dealt win 1hr + games in ID for the past god knows how many years you've been playing. Knowing that you can end the game 100% of the time solo by the 50min mark makes it so you always know that the game will not go past 50 mins. 50mins is really not that long for a max duration if you look at max duration's of other games that are currently popular and deemed "acceptable" (Dota 2 > no max, 40mins + a lot the time. Sc2 > no max, 30mins + a lot the time. Lol > no max, 40mins + a lot the time).

[Lynx]

Why is stalling, a non-issue being discussed? The average game time is around 30 min.

A problem you might not realize is that you are trying to balance a game where you assume the builders are at the highest level of play, or in other words you assume builders utilize the best strategy available to the builders (quadbases). While you assume the titan does not utilize his best strategies (resource blocking, mound wotw, item jump etc. the list is long), in other words you balance the game in an assumption that the builders are near the skill ceiling and the titan still is far from its skill ceiling.

Probably because the builder-meta has been the same for so many years it is only natural that builders will learn it sooner or later.

So I suggest meta-fuck-up. For example these changes can be;

• Terrain changes
  
  • Base terrain changes
    
    • Quad bases a problem? Make bases smaller so if builders want to quad base they'll have to sacrifice space. Both tower areas and lumber area.
    • The same building placements have dominated for years, if you change the terrain in bases, builders will be forced to invent new ones. Top left is an excellent example of a base since it still has no optimal building placement (unlike euro lol).
  • Pathway changes
    
    • Reward people that can structure jump efficiently by adding more structure jumps and remove a lot of 1x1 pathways.
  • Mid terrain changes
    
    • The mid walls have looked the same for ages, if the terrain is changed builders will be forced to invent new wall placements, which will be more inefficient until the optimal walling is found.

Meh, the list can be made longer, but my point is to create more options for builders which they need to choose; this or that, but not both. It will create debate of what option is best contrary to what is now where every best option is already known, we know where the good bases are, we know who the best builders are, we know the best optimal walling for every base, we know that quadbases are better than solobases etc.

I don't advocate for one change rather than another, I advocate for a meta-fuck-up that will make every player start thinking of what change is best. Since that is one of the reasons I fell in love with Island Defense, I knew nothing, but now that I know a lot more, every decision is mundane and boring since I already know the best option. What I'm trying to say is, I think there should be some kind of exploration of mechanics (maybe there is a better word, but you get the idea) while you are playing, and once that is gone there is no reason to play the game anymore. Let me finish with a quote from an old player that was invited to play an IH game (can't remember his name, it was from the skype chat burn created); "We've already done everything that you can do in ID, so what reason is there for me to play". He isn't wrong, that's why I think we need a meta-fuck-up.

[Neco]

If titan hunters + gold towers didn't kept getting nerfed people might actually try to do something besides basing.

???. I haven't touched gold towers (apart from Toxic + buffs to weird ones like Dryad's)... And the only Titan Hunter changes has been to flying hunters which I get berated for not doing enough...

EDIT: This should probably be moved back into the ID forum rather than sitting out here. It's no longer a discussion on making new rules for ENT.

[Merex]

@Hyo Move pls.