Legion TD 2: Standalone Sequel to Legion TD

[Jules]

Many points have been mentioned by all the way more experienced players than me.

Just my thoughts about cross: I would keep it. It's basically a different game mode, which can also be nice to play if people want. But is has to be turned off in, what everybody calls mastermind mode, I guess. One thing making it easy is of course the builder gets the double amount of gold but only kills one wave at a time. So killing is mega fast and efficient.

What I am wondering: Now, most computers start lagging during the game sooner or later simply because of the massive amount of creeps. WC3 is a 15 years old game, how will it be when all this is transported to a new engine? Will it be such, that the engine is just waaaay better and more efficient so that things like that aren't a problem anymore?

We'll be evaluating cross. I don't think we'll remove it, but we'll make sure to keep it balanced and reasonably supported.

Lagging and freezing and clogging due to the massive amount of creeps will not be an issue in Legion TD 2.

[Akitos]

I guess the most important things have been mentioned already, so I'll just comment on a few statements that I personaly can't agree with.

it surely depends on the balacing but in general i would allow crossing on the normal games but disable the possibility on the mastermind mode.

I'm sure you meant to say disabled in ranked games, right? Because mastermind mode is nothing else than Prophet and will be played in normal games aswell. I don't see a reason to not allow players to cross in normals, but imo they shouldn't be able to cross in ranked/professional scene; mostly because I don't believe it's possible to balance it out entirely. Not to mention it would be easier to eloboost using cross (like people did it in LoL. Someone pays to get carried by a way better player in duo que.). Let's be realistic, eloboosting will be a thing. It has always been. And allowing cross in ranked just makes it too easy... The booster goes value and the boosted guy income, no one will even notice it...

leaking some units to gain more time is a good tactical choice but pushing hard with some units and stall time with the leaks on the king by upgrading regeneration and hp without attack should get more punished or somehow avoided like forcing to upgrade attack after some hp and/or reg or giving the enemy team always 100% of the leaking gold should balance it as well.
an extreme case was common on the old map but can still work on the "fixed" one is to sell all towers on round 4, push hard and upgrade kings hp and reg during this round by stalling time on round 4 and 5 you are able to send a few thousand lumber on round 6 or 7 which is pretty much impossible to hold.

I don't think that this strategy is any issue without clog tbh. It's not even an issue right now with the reduced clog and pretty much only works against noobs. I don't see a reason why you would not allow teams to stall for time, considering both teams get this time and it's the initiating team who loses gold during the progress. It's an insanely high risk high reward strategy and I don't see what's wrong about that. If the enemy team reacts properly the clog team will pretty much instantly lose.

king can be juggled to stall more time as well (by attacking the opposite creeps of the current one) caused by the turn animation so there should be a fixed attackanimation/time.

Imo the best solution to this would be if players are not able to control the king at all! The concept of one player alone controling the king, and therefore the fate of the team, is extremly outdated and I really hope they'll not do the same in LTD2.... There is nothing more frustrating than to see someone take king control and fail miserably, making the team lose, while it was an easy win with proper control. At this point it's probably also worth mentioning that there will be trolls!!! And with the possability of them controling king their ability to TK would be even worse... Not to mention I don't see any issues with having the king control itself. I already made a good suggestion about a king control system in the LTD2 forum a long time ago tho, and I hope it has been noticed, so I won't go into much detail regarding this now.

[milfhunter96]

Hi Jules

[Edmontonian]

Get your kick starter up dude!!! This is exciting!

[Jules]

I guess the most important things have been mentioned already, so I'll just comment on a few statements that I personaly can't agree with.

it surely depends on the balacing but in general i would allow crossing on the normal games but disable the possibility on the mastermind mode.

I'm sure you meant to say disabled in ranked games, right? Because mastermind mode is nothing else than Prophet and will be played in normal games aswell. I don't see a reason to not allow players to cross in normals, but imo they shouldn't be able to cross in ranked/professional scene; mostly because I don't believe it's possible to balance it out entirely. Not to mention it would be easier to eloboost using cross (like people did it in LoL. Someone pays to get carried by a way better player in duo que.). Let's be realistic, eloboosting will be a thing. It has always been. And allowing cross in ranked just makes it too easy... The booster goes value and the boosted guy income, no one will even notice it...

leaking some units to gain more time is a good tactical choice but pushing hard with some units and stall time with the leaks on the king by upgrading regeneration and hp without attack should get more punished or somehow avoided like forcing to upgrade attack after some hp and/or reg or giving the enemy team always 100% of the leaking gold should balance it as well.
an extreme case was common on the old map but can still work on the "fixed" one is to sell all towers on round 4, push hard and upgrade kings hp and reg during this round by stalling time on round 4 and 5 you are able to send a few thousand lumber on round 6 or 7 which is pretty much impossible to hold.

I don't think that this strategy is any issue without clog tbh. It's not even an issue right now with the reduced clog and pretty much only works against noobs. I don't see a reason why you would not allow teams to stall for time, considering both teams get this time and it's the initiating team who loses gold during the progress. It's an insanely high risk high reward strategy and I don't see what's wrong about that. If the enemy team reacts properly the clog team will pretty much instantly lose.

king can be juggled to stall more time as well (by attacking the opposite creeps of the current one) caused by the turn animation so there should be a fixed attackanimation/time.

Imo the best solution to this would be if players are not able to control the king at all! The concept of one player alone controling the king, and therefore the fate of the team, is extremly outdated and I really hope they'll not do the same in LTD2.... There is nothing more frustrating than to see someone take king control and fail miserably, making the team lose, while it was an easy win with proper control. At this point it's probably also worth mentioning that there will be trolls!!! And with the possability of them controling king their ability to TK would be even worse... Not to mention I don't see any issues with having the king control itself. I already made a good suggestion about a king control system in the LTD2 forum a long time ago tho, and I hope it has been noticed, so I won't go into much detail regarding this now.

Thanks for the detailed writeup. I agree - I think the issue of leaking some units to stall is a cool strategy. We'll be evaluating this to make sure it's a viable strategy in some situations and not too overpowered or too niche.

We're still making a ton of design calls. Right now, we're focused on engineering the actual game together, so some of the cool game design calls will come later. This sort of high level feedback is SUPER helpful.

[Jules]

Hi Jules

Hey milfhunter96! Nice name.

[Jules]

Get your kick starter up dude!!! This is exciting!

Wooo glad you're as excited as us! LegionTD2.com/kickstarter - currently the preview page. will redirect to the actual Kickstarter on March 1st!

[milfhunter96]

Imo the best solution to this would be if players are not able to control the king at all! The concept of one player alone controling the king, and therefore the fate of the team, is extremly outdated and I really hope they'll not do the same in LTD2....

In my opinion the king should be controlled by a player! Its a part of LTD to control the King.

There is nothing more frustrating than to see someone take king control and fail miserably, making the team lose, while it was an easy win with proper control.

So maybe add a feature to matchmarking, that there is always 1 player who can control king on each team (and only this player can control)

At this point it's probably also worth mentioning that there will be trolls!!!

Well there will be trolls anyway, no matter if u can control the king or not. reporting&punnishing them is the only way to handle them.

All in all i think controlling the king is an important aspect in ltd, even more in high skilled games. it needs a high level of skill to know what to focus 1st on what level and how to use the king abilities in the right way.

[MarshMallows]

If the king skills are the same as in mega 3.41, please balance them out a bit! Also when you wave you switch target which is super annoying, just a small thing, but why not make it better!

[Akitos]

It is a big part of the WC3 LTD, yes. That doesn't mean it has to be a big part of new LTD tho. Especially for solo que it would be a really bad idea to let 1 player have control of the king. It surely would not be healthy for the game and would cause a lot of troubles. Did you ever play any matchmaking game aside from LTD (which isn't actually matchmaking based)? You realise that we're speaking of WAAAAAY different dimensions here yes? And that LTD 2 is a standalone game which has absolutly nothing to do with WC3. There won't be a tiny community where a handfull of moderators can personaly review every report ^^ And the idea of having the highest elo player control the king (I think that's what you were suggesting) is also a terrible idea, because that doesn't automatically make him the best to control the king; nor does it ensure he's not a troll. We're all hoping for LTD2 to become a big ass game, don't we? And in a big ass game like LoL for example you'll rarely ever see the same people in solo/duo que again! Means: It will be EXTREMLY frustrating to lose a game that you should've won purely to one person having a suboptimal king control. In LIHL for example you and your teammates would remember it if someone was bad with control and wouldn't let him control again. Same on the 1,2k+ bot. But that won't work in solo/duo que!!! And trust me, you don't want your whole game to be at grace of what 1 random person out of your team does for a fraction of the game length!!! That system is extremly outdated and doesn't belong in a standalone game as it is.

[Jamo]

@Akitos: Good points, I never thought about giving the king control to the computer. I see problems though, and that's the AI. It has to be REALLY good to be better than a human player. In the situation on king, medium is not enough. Just think of how often you wished your towers focus differently on the creeps, especially bosses. It's realy shit so often, that with that AI I do not want a computer to control the king. Just being medium good on king than does way better. Ofc one cannot compare to WC3 AI with a modern standalone game and if this point is not an issue, then I would like it very much because of the points you raised. But also, do you even know in every situation what the best king control is? Because you should know when you wanna make an AI. But people discuss this all the time. First herms, then wave or stomp? or vice versa? Depending on att? First locks, then kraken demons etc. But maybe one could snipe one early demon because it's hp is mega low? It's complicated, and hard to know what's best and I doubt an AI can do better than a good player. And if this is the case, then always a player should be able to control the king because it also belongs to the game.

[Akitos]

Well, I once suggested a mix between automatic and manual control. The control itself should be automatically, but you could give the player the ability to decide what should be focused first. For example:

27 Tuskarr (lvl 14), 13 Gargoyles, 2 Warlocks and 3 Frost Wolfs are being leaked to the king. Each player would then get a popup window in which they could select their desired kill order, by simply leftclicking at them in the order of their choosing or maybe using drag & drop to change it as you'd like it. This could/should also feature a suggested kill order, so that selecting the proper order is made easier (especially for new players). A very simple example would be that Warlocks are killed before the standard creeps. This selection could pop up at the moment that one player leaks, so players would have enough time making their decision. If it ends up being a situation where one player holds all the leaks in mid -> fine, the poll was not needed because king doesn't have to be controled. However, if it ended up being needed players had more than enough time to do so. Obviously the kill order control would also update, for example if a player kills something in mid, because that might change the desired order of killing. The order of killing would then be done as the majority of the team would like it. If no player is choosing anything the king will simply use the default kill order that is suggested. This way players would have an influence on the king control, but they could not fuck it up on their own. By having the king control automatically both teams also have the same up or downside, depending on how good the AI does it. Obviously the king should be pretty good at it tho, since it's a standalone game it shouldn't be an issue to have the king make use of onehits, avoid long animations from turning around unnecessarily etc.

TL;DR: Give the players the opportunity to tell the king what to do and when to do it by using a voting system, instead of letting them do the control themself. This way they still have an influence on the king control and it remains to be an important part of the game, but it doesn't give a player the chance to singlehandedly screw up the game for everyone else. LTD is a team game and controling the king should be a team efford!

[Jamo]

@Akitos: Sounds awesome to me, I love it!

So, what actually are the current thoughts about the King anyhow, @Jules?

[MarshMallows]

Can u clear up when we cah pre order and also when we can play the game? @jules

[magicpotatoes]

Can't wait to see this new game !!