[4.0.0] Builder Researches and Techtree

[Neco]

N.B. These proposed changes only effect Defenders. The Titan will still be completely normal and happy.

First Proposal - Merchants Buy Your Items, No One Else Does
The first proposal I have is to remove the ability to sell items to the Builder Shops, and Research Centres. This would mean the only way to sell items is to a Merchant. This increases the demand for Merchants and gives them a staple ability apart from being able to buy items from them. It would also force the lumber feeding ability to only occur late game, rather than early game where Defenders should have to defend for themselves. This would promote basing when you have enough resources, rather than basing early during the game.

Second Proposal - Techtree Tier Swap
Currently, the basic Defender techtree is:
[tabel]L=Tier 1%Tier 2%Tier 3%Tier 4
L=Shelter%Research Centre%Merchant%Advanced Research Centre[/tabel]
I propose changing it to look like the following:
[tabel]L=Tier 1%Tier 2%Tier 3%Tier 4
L=Shelter%Research Centre%Advanced Research Centre%Merchant[/tabel]
Pushing the Merchant to be a Tier 4 techtree item, would force it to be used more late game. My idea also involves changing Mega towers and Merchants to require Advanced Research Centres. This way, the first thing you spend gold on as a baser is your Advanced Research Centre for 45g. Ultimate Towers would still require a Merchant, making them effectively a Tier above Mega towers (which makes sense, they're late game items). The only issue with this is that upgrades that were previously available for 90g (such as Murloc's arrow tower upgrade) would now only cost 45g. The solution to that would be...

Third Proposal - ARC Researches Overhaul
I propose to make ARC researches cost gold, and to be molded around the idea that they are advanced versions of the normal Research Centre's upgrades (just like the name implies). This would be balanced around the Gold Penalty value of 90g in such a way so that ARC cost + ARC researches (excluding Adept Hunter Training) = 90g. Obviously this means some more researches would be made available to some of the races while are currently lacking RC/ARC researches (Makrura for example, has absolutely no researches in it's RC).

Why?
The idea is to give a clear definition of game stages, and making the game easier to balance around these stages. This change would push for more teamwork and survival at the early stages of the game, and more hiding in bases and defending in the late stages. There would of course, be balance changes around this but I feel as if changing how the tiers work will drastically help us tweak and balance the stages of the game.

Let's get some discussion going! What do you think about this?

EDIT: To clarify, here's the old techtree requirements (the structures require the top structure in order to be built):
[tabel]L=None%Shelter%Research Centre%Merchant%ARC
L=Shelter%Research Centre%Merchant%Advanced Research Centre%
L=Fruit Tree%Tower%Enhanced / Super Tower%Mega / Ultimate Towers%
L=%Wall%Enhanced Wall%Advanced Wall%[/tabel]

New proposal:
[tabel]L=None%Shelter%Research Centre%ARC%Merchant
L=Shelter%Research Centre%Advanced Research Centre%Merchant%
L=Fruit Tree%Tower%Enhanced / Super Tower%Mega Tower%Ultimate Towers
L=%Wall%Enhanced Wall%Advanced Wall%[/tabel]

[Burn]

It's good, major nerf to builders.

1) Nerf to lumber feeding - building a merchant meant infinite wood pooling.
2) Gold towers should be extreme luxury anyway.
3) Big nerf to the 45g aura/spines, which is good, since they were overpowered.
4) Big nerf to gnoll trackers
5) Merchant is cheap (250w), ARC is incredibly expensive (from 1250w to 2000w), upgrades too.

-Burn

[Mini-CML-]

- Tech tree is done how it should have been.
- LB's more often
- Gold ARC
- Merchant become more useful
- Later lumber feed

This is really good. Definitely yes!

[TimmyTheTauren]

Lumber feeding is mostly done by sending a turtle to the secret shop, so it only poses a minor nerf to lumber feeding.

I agree with everything for the most part, though.

[Burn]

Lumber feeding is mostly done by sending a turtle to the secret shop, so it only poses a minor nerf to lumber feeding.

A bit off-topic, but you can counter that by camping secret shop in the fog.

Merchant means you can lumber feed with no regrets.

-Burn

[Neco]

Lumber feeding is mostly done by sending a turtle to the secret shop, so it only poses a minor nerf to lumber feeding.

Under the proposed changes, you can't just leave a turtle at the secret shop. It has to come back and sell items at a merchant.

EDIT: Yacapo and Dildamesh don't want your crummy items.

[TimmyTheTauren]

;O

So the only way for a builder to ever sell any item is a merchant which you now get after ARC. I can see the major nerf to lumber feeding now. Sounds fine on paper, we'll see how it works in practice.

[Burn]

EDIT: Yacapo and Dildamesh don't want your crummy items.

You may ask why this is...

The reason why Yacapo and Dildamesh don't want you to re-sell items they are selling, is because Island Defense is all a dream, a recurring nightmare. Yacapo and Dildamesh are farmers, farming gold and wood. Gold and wood is conjured during the nightmare, harvested from the wood of the trees in the island, and the heart of the island; the gold mound.

Whenever a builder buys imaginary items from Yacapo and Dildamesh in exchange for gold/wood, Yacapo and Dildamesh receives gold/wood into their bank account. The whole concept of Island Defense is for Yacapo and Dildamesh to harvest gold/wood.

Which is why people should keep playing, so that Yacapo and Dildamesh can continue to have a roof over their heads and food for when they get hungry. Think about others. Play Island Defense.

-Burn

[pandaren.]

I like the idea.

[Dr_CoolHaus]

EDIT: Yacapo and Dildamesh don't want your crummy items.

You may ask why this is...

The reason why Yacapo and Dildamesh don't want you to re-sell items they are selling, is because Island Defense is all a dream, a recurring nightmare. Yacapo and Dildamesh are farmers, farming gold and wood. Gold and wood is conjured during the nightmare, harvested from the wood of trees in the island, and the heart of the island; the gold mound.

Whenever a builder buys imaginary items from Yacapo and Dildamesh in exchange for wood/gold, Yacapo and Dildamesh receives gold/wood into their bank account. The whole concept of Island Defense is for Yacapo and Dildamesh to harvest gold/wood.

Which is why people should keep playing, so that Yacapo and Dildamesh can continue to have a roof over their heads and food for when they get hungry. Play Island Defense. Think about others.

-Burn

*slow clap* I enjoyed that actually.

[narbtit]

Yeah that arc/merch/aarc never really made sense to me
I'm fine with the builder nerf and longer upgrade progression if you can rework it

[Neco]

Updated with a visual table of the requirements changes. I'll most likely start shifting things over in a few days unless someone disagrees.

[TimmyTheTauren]

When you say advanced walls after arc, is that like mag, demo, etc, now upgrades wall hp and armor with arc (from arc? still from rc?), not merch?

[Neco]

When you say advanced walls after arc, is that like mag, demo, etc, now upgrades wall hp and armor with arc (from arc? still from rc?), not merch?

Yeah, although some tweaking to values will most likely be required since for some races content like that was gated for more than just 45g. There will definitely have to be changes into how the researches in the ARC work.

[MuffinMan]

Some races have arcs that do not cost 45 gold. Will the arc cost remain the same, be raised, or be shifted with the merchant cost for these builders?