The suicide "problem" explained

[BeeKauzh]

It came to my attention that Neco thinks basers trying to suicide to deny feed is a problem and the game should not be balanced around suiciding. While it may seem logical, I believe Neco came up with the wrong way to fix this "problem". I'll demonstrate why this isnt a problem and I'll tell you how I would fix it if you truly want to prevent people from suiciding.

First, how do builders lose? Thats usually when the titan gain alot of feed and becomes overfed. Overfed means the titan is currently stronger than anything builders can do. What is the best way to gain feed you ask? Killing a base. Killing a base at any time in the game will usually lead the titan into being overfed. After killing a base, the titan can usually proceeds to kill every other bases with ease. This is the biggest problem in ID. There are potentially 10 bases and if only 1 of em fall, the titan wins. The community found a way to fix this problem. By suiciding and by leaving. These 2 things are seen as problem but they actually are the only reliable solution to the this problem since you could not usually deny enough stuff in your base before titan destroys it.

Neco fixed the basers leaving "problem" by making their units stay longer in the game after they leave.
Neco now fixed the basers suiciding "problem" by making their units stay after they die.

The 2 somewhat reliable way to fix the biggest problem of ID are now gone.


What I suggest is to get rid of the titan being overfed after 1 base problem instead of trying to fix the suiciding or leaving one. I would fix this problem by having all towers feed 0 gold, neutralized and regular ones. This would also fix the basers suiciding and leaving problem.

Another good thing is it would be a long awaited nerf to titan.
You say titan is hard and has a low winrate? Try these solutions:
-Dont buy trident
-Dont buy fiery gauntlet
-Dont buy Helm
-Dont buy life essence
-Dont buy gem
-Buy armor of fate. Buy 6 of them and spam the heal button when sieging. It's not hard, people simply buy the wrong items. You say 6 armor of fate is lame and you want to buy something else? Then youre not trying to win and therefore titan's winrate is not accurate.

[ShadowZz]

@Beekauzh I read all of yours, please take the time to read all of this

First, how do builders lose? Thats usually when the titan gain alot of feed and becomes overfed. Overfed means the titan is currently stronger than anything builders can do. What is the best way to gain feed you ask? Killing a base. Killing a base at any time in the game will usually lead the titan into being overfed. After killing a base, the titan can usually proceeds to kill every other bases with ease. This is the biggest problem in ID.

Currently killing an entire average base assuming they didn't det anything with 6 fruits, RC, shelter, no workers (assumed detted always), 40 towers feeds enough exp to go from 7>8 or 8>9 or 9 and a quarter>10. Gold is obviously the same for all instances of level which would be 50-55 depending on the number of shelters. So enough gold for either half a Aof or 1 super regen spine. It's not really that much to be honest and I think it's more that the additional minions from breaking a base allows titan to steamroll the others with the added support he now has.

The 2 somewhat reliable way to fix the biggest problem of ID are now gone.

I agree, the problem is solved.

Another good thing is it would be a long awaited nerf to titan.
You say titan is hard and has a low winrate?

Now this needs to be split up a little.

Does titan need to be nerfed. Yes, I actually completely agree with this part (I'm guessing you're surprised I said that).

Now for the second bit. Titan is hard and does have a low win rate overall. Now this is the fun bit. For experienced titans like yourself and others (you know who I mean), titan win rate is actually quite high. For average titans and below titan win rate is really bad <30%. Just to clarify, by average titan I mean people who know how to titan, make a few mistakes, can't pull of a 6+ minion ww fog nuke (hope you know what I mean).

There's a few reason's for this:
(Not all listed, just spitballing really)
-Playing titan is very different to playing builder. It is a lot more micro dependent.
-Titan is an extremly steep learning curve moving from playing builder (td game to hero control).
-There is simply too much happening all the time, like during a siege (passing titanic wards and placing, focusing walls so you don't run around like a retard, main healing, minion healing, nuking rewaller with main, nuking with minions, mass nuking in general, ww low hp minions, ww main, tp control).
-Item's in general being confusing.

Some solution:
(Not all listed, just spitballing really)
-Make it so you can simply buy the recipe and if you have enough gold it will give you the entire item instead of building it piece by piece.
-Change titanic wards so it has charges based off of the total amount of minions you have + your main titan so as you can leave it on 1 minion and place the wards without having to worry about passing it through different minions during a siege. Charges would simply be on a timer and refresh after the usual cd time for a single minion. Mystic Staff of the Gods should work like this too.
-Give all walls a 1 damage attack with 600 range and a good attack speed, walls should now be classed as attacking enemies and you won't have to spam right click or have 3 minions stacked behind titan literally doing nothing but standing and block because you could auto attack walls.
-(Already discussed) Nerf higher end titans via putting a cap of the max amount of minions at 3-4 minions. Nerf/Buff minions accordingly, give different bonuses for kills after max minions is reached.
-(Not possible on Wc3 I don't think, doing it in standalone) Make titans abilities and minions abilities "quickcast". i.e if you were mass nuking someone you basically hover your mouse over them and spam q with main + minions selected it will cast all the nukes on that target without having to switch through them or left click appropriately (Dota 2 uses this for meepo poofing etc).

Basically what I'm getting at is changing things in the game which have absolutely no effect on game balance but make titan easier to play is a good thing to remove the distance between builder and titan skill without actually changing anything.

The other point is nerfing things that apply to higher end titans like yourself which is reference to lot's of minions = lot's of heal but average and below don't really get more than 3 prior to going at bases. I hope you get the jist of what I mean with this one.

Obviously there are other changes like this one but I'm sure you guys can spitball some more that only effect high end titans instead of titans in general.

-Dont buy trident
-Dont buy fiery gauntlet
-Dont buy Helm
-Dont buy life essence
-Dont buy gem
-Buy armor of fate. Buy 6 of them and spam the heal button when sieging. It's not hard, people simply buy the wrong items. You say 6 armor of fate is lame and you want to buy something else? Then youre not trying to win and therefore titan's winrate is not accurate.

Having 6 AoF's would be useless to you. It's attributes stack diminishingly and without explain how armor works to you the easiest way to put this is that anything past 30-40 armor is not worth the gold you're paying. In addition to that evasion when you have just 2 AoF's is about 10-11% with each giving 8% for example. So with 6 of them it's only like 20-25% evasion even though it says it gives 8x6= 48%. After 2 AoF's super regen spines becomes more worth the slot for half the price.

I'd say this is the most reliable build right now:
-Gauntlets of Rage
-Armor of Fate
-Super Regen Spine
-Super Regen Spine
-Super Regen Spine
-Don't sell Ankh. If you still have it, this slot is for Ankh of Power. If not it becomes a super regen spine.

-If you have extra gold, buy a Life Essence and put it on a minion.
-Berserker Gem on minion.

Proof it works and is consistent:
https://id.rory.io/stats/player/Ophion%40Azeroth/
Ophion@USEast uses this build every game with a current titan record of 37/3.

[lordmillt]

Who dont go 4 spines 1 armor o Lee lel

[BeeKauzh]

@Shadowzz Actually killing all walls and 40 towers feeds 50-55 gold. The whole base feed 70-90.
IMO feeding 40g is too much. Titan gets twice that amount.

Beekauzh wrote:
The 2 somewhat reliable way to fix the biggest problem of ID are now gone.


I agree, the problem is solved.

This is of course a bad thing. The problem is not solved and thats why i made a suggestion on how to fix it.

Now for the second bit. Titan is hard and does have a low win rate overall.

For this part, I'll simply say it again that all you need to do when sieging is buy armor of fate and spam the heal button. No need to nuke or do fancy stuff. Yes titan may be hard before siege time, but for some reason this is where alot of people fk up. Sieging is the easiest thing in ID and alot of people fk up.

Having 6 AoF's would be useless to you.

While this build may cost the highest amount of gold, it is the strongest one. My testing showed that its as strong as your build when sieging with titan alone (Both builds destroyed 5 walls and 1 tower before dieing to a 42 mega tower base). Now, if I were to siege with 1 minion, my build having nothing but damage reduction becomes way better because I benefit more from healing. A ward or 1 minion makes my build unkillable by those 42 towers.

Stacking damage reduction and healing makes titan immortal. Knowing this, why would you ever buy damage item to siege a base?
Yes other items are good, but armor of fate is always better when it comes to sieging a base.

[ShadowZz]

So instead of actually reading my post you just skimmed it. If you read it, you wouldn't have wrote this:

For this part, I'll simply say it again that all you need to do when sieging is buy armor of fate and spam the heal button. No need to nuke or do fancy stuff. Yes titan may be hard before siege time, but for some reason this is where alot of people fk up. Sieging is the easiest thing in ID and alot of people fk up.

You know, this is the reason nobody bothers to explain changes to the community. Because you can't even be bothered to read the shit that people post.

[FollowingPath]

Some solution:
(Not all listed, just spitballing really)
-Make it so you can simply buy the recipe and if you have enough gold it will give you the entire item instead of building it piece by piece.
-Change titanic wards so it has charges based off of the total amount of minions you have + your main titan so as you can leave it on 1 minion and place the wards without having to worry about passing it through different minions during a siege. Charges would simply be on a timer and refresh after the usual cd time for a single minion. Mystic Staff of the Gods should work like this too.
-Give all walls a 1 damage attack with 600 range and a good attack speed, walls should now be classed as attacking enemies and you won't have to spam right click or have 3 minions stacked behind titan literally doing nothing but standing and block because you could auto attack walls.
-(Already discussed) Nerf higher end titans via putting a cap of the max amount of minions at 3-4 minions. Nerf/Buff minions accordingly, give different bonuses for kills after max minions is reached.
-(Not possible on Wc3 I don't think, doing it in standalone) Make titans abilities and minions abilities "quickcast". i.e if you were mass nuking someone you basically hover your mouse over them and spam q with main + minions selected it will cast all the nukes on that target without having to switch through them or left click appropriately (Dota 2 uses this for meepo poofing etc).

Every point on this list (except the recipe one, that sounds pretty handy) is a skill gap that makes people respect titan players. I personally have more respect for good titan players than I do for good builder players. Like you said, the general mechanics of titan are harder, but it being hard doesn't justify making it easier. Every time you make it easier and more convenient to play titan, you also get closer to removing any impact that individual skill has on the game.
And if that impact is removed, there will be zero reason to play the game more than once every other week for shits and giggles.

[Burn]

Off-topic, but idk, life essence is quite nice too for preventing nukes and chain healing. The amount of healing sustain from life essence is better than an armor of fate and the build-up is better, imo,

Also, I don't go damage items, but when I do, it's only for Ankh of power for that 15g use and extra item slot, or when I used to go waters.

But, yes, I used to mass super regen armored spines on 900hp heal moltenious in 306e because it would just walk through bases. In 309d shit changed because I started to encounter more double bases.

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

@FollowingPath

Starcraft 2, Warcraft 3 Ladder, Civilization, Dota 2, Lol.

All these games have one thing in common. Everything you do, someone else can do too. If I die to an anti mage in Dota 2 I can pick anti mage next game and do the same things myself.

The only things that separate how well you do in all of these games is decision making, use of time and knowledge.

For Island Defense this is not the case. You don't simply lose to a titan and then switch teams and go for it because it's simply too hard of a skill gap and a lot of the things titans do you can't just simply "try it yourself" (item jump, mass nuking, passing wards, control during sieges).

Titan isn't there to be some elite group of players that people should "respect". This is the problem with the ID community. Your so used to it being this way that it's literally impossible to say anything different without seeing 3 topics of crying because titan may be made easier to play for new people.

I'm not talking about changing game balance. I'm talking about making titan accessible to non elitist players.

Simple fact: If the game stays the way it used to be with titan being extremely hard to learn then new players will simply stop trying. Older skilled players will eventually leave as they do. The "noobs" which your all whining about ruining your games due to new changes are the only reason ID games still exist, let alone start at all. If the game is easier and more accessible for newer/average players then people will keep playing and new players will keep coming and learning. Your elitist view of ID will lead to new players never trying titan and old players eventually leaving out of boredom as they have for the last few years = ID dead, literally dead. Every change that leads to titan being easier to play you all whine about it, even ones that have 0 impact on the game as suggested above and simply make it easier for the average player you still whine because you need some kind of elitist group who are good at titan. It's honestly the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. This is not a competitive game. It's 1v10 and it's not ranked lobbys. There are no elitists. There is no matchmaking. If people don't work towards making titan easier to play ID will be dead. As it has been dying for quite a while now.

[Lynx]

Haven't read the thread, just want to comment on this

Simple fact: If the game stays the way it used to be with titan being extremely hard to learn then new players will simply stop trying. Older skilled players will eventually leave as they do. The "noobs" which your all whining about ruining your games due to new changes are the only reason ID games still exist, let alone start at all. If the game is easier and more accessible for newer/average players then people will keep playing and new players will keep coming and learning. Your elitist view of ID will lead to new players never trying titan and old players eventually leaving out of boredom as they have for the last few years = ID dead, literally dead. Every change that leads to titan being easier to play you all whine about it, even ones that have 0 impact on the game as suggested above and simply make it easier for the average player you still whine because you need some kind of elitist group who are good at titan. It's honestly the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. This is not a competitive game. It's 1v10 and it's not ranked lobbys. There are no elitists. There is no matchmaking. If people don't work towards making titan easier to play ID will be dead. As it has been dying for quite a while now.

I was a new player once. I was completely shit. I remember walling like a moron, I remember all the times I died when wallwalking trying to copy others, I remember every titan game I died 5 minutes at mound. And I loved every minute of it, the challenge, the grind, the community, the seemingly infinite learning curve. I loved it and continued playing and grew better as a player. I'm certain I'm not alone feeling like this, otherwise we all wouldn't be here arguing like kids.

If every element we all love is removed this game will be dumpster-tier and be comparable to other mundane monotonous WC III games like 7 Blademasters, Legion TD, Wintermaul etc. Island Defense was nuanced, complex, diverse. Each game of it was never alike an other. What is left of it now is some weird mix of both, but I still believe it can be salvaged and that is why I still come here.

The current version of Island Defense surely caters to a larger audience due to it being more casual than previous versions. The question is though, is this the right path to direct Island Defense in? Arguably I'd say no. Warcraft III as a whole is slowly dying, players are leaving for newer games. DotA's players are leaving to HotS, DotA 2, LoL, HoN. Legion TD's players are leaving to Legion TD 2. Other custom games are losing players to DotA 2's custom games. Island Defense's players have nowhere but Warcraft III to play. As there are no new players coming, we should cater to our older loyal player base. We should enjoy these last moments together. Communities die unexpectedly, — look at WoW private server Nostalrius (more than 150k active players) that closes unexpectedly this week — we should cherish these last moments together and make the game fun for ourselves and not for some hypothetical new player.

edit: in hindsight, my post is gay asfk

[BeeKauzh]

So instead of actually reading my post you just skimmed it. If you read it, you wouldn't have wrote this:

For this part, I'll simply say it again that all you need to do when sieging is buy armor of fate and spam the heal button. No need to nuke or do fancy stuff. Yes titan may be hard before siege time, but for some reason this is where alot of people fk up. Sieging is the easiest thing in ID and alot of people fk up.

You know, this is the reason nobody bothers to explain changes to the community. Because you can't even be bothered to read the shit that people post.

@shadowzz Actually I read & analyzed it all. Alot and I mean Alot of people are good titans. They simply fk up when its time to siege. They get to the point where they are overfed and they lose a game they should win about 100% of the time.

The other point is nerfing things that apply to higher end titans like yourself which is reference to lot's of minions = lot's of heal but average and below don't really get more than 3 prior to going at bases. I hope you get the jist of what I mean with this one.

Again, alot of people should win as titan even if they have only 1-2-3 minion. They simply fk up the easiest part of the game. Sieging.

Actually pay attention to titans and you will see there is no absurdly hard learning curve. Or atleast not many people are stuck in that learning phase. Most titans who survive the first 10 minutes are actually good. It's not rare for me to think there is no hopes of winning as builder. And then the titan fk up when sieging. I facepalm evertyime


I can use my past to further prove this:
I was a noob titan once. Once. One game. The game is stupidly easy to play but then I'd fail when its time to siege. Of course I did not know everything after one game, but I had a vague idea of what to do.

Same thing for builder.

All you have to learn is what is good and what isnt.
Sieging? Buy good items and spam the heal button. You said I was good, this is exactly how I siege. Everytime.

[ShadowZz]

I actually agree with you Beek but a lot of the reasons for people being bad at sieging and buying items and what not is because there is no ingame guidance for buying items and when you are sieging there is actually a lot of stuff going on.

With the main hurdle for titans being micro management during sieges and game knowledge do you not agree that solving those problems without changing balance through the suggestions in my original post for titan to allow more people to titan and then accessing balance and acting accordingly would be better instead of making balance changes that either have no effect on titans or only affect a certain group (bad,average,good,insane titans etc)?

Like wise if you want it the other way then as you said good titans do not need more than 3 minions to break bases and nerfing titan in that way would make the game harder for good titans like yourself and others whilst not affecting the game balance for bad/average titans. If anything it might improve their skill a little through letting them focus on less units making titan more accessible.

I'm simply trying to make titan as easy to learn and playable as builder which will in turn increase the skill of both sides through game knowledge with both teams. There are way too many builders who have literally never played titan or have played 300 builder games and 10 titan games because they are simply flustered with how much you actually have to do micro wise and time wise with titan.

I hope this moves this topic forward in some productive way.

[1337hamburger]

Yo. . . players are logging into warcraft 3, not club penguin. The game is known for having good micro management be a requirement to be good at the game. What I'm trying to say here is that most wc3 players know how to micro already, and if they don't then that is an issue they have throughout all of wc3 not just island defense.

[Stealer]

Most wc3 can't do micro and yes they do have problems in games with >2 active units.

[Lynx]

Last time I checked apm in my games the average was a bit higher than 30 for builders and around 75 for titan iirc.

[ShadowZz]

@1337hamburger I don't understand what your argument is about not making titan easier and more accessible to play without changing game balance. It's literally a win/win situation. You end up with less trash tier games and people will actually want to play titan more. It's better for the builders because they end up having decent games without affecting game balance......