End-game VOLCANIC end-game suggestion

[Burn]

My ultimate suggestion copied from id.org: http://www.islanddefense.org/forum/inde ... 847.0.html

VOLCANIC end-game suggestion

-After 61 minutes after the titan has spawned, there will be a volcano eruption, destroying everything with fast moving debris erupting from the gold mound. (4th GP)
-After 1 minute, have the volcanic ash cloud the screen and kill off all units due to polluted air.
-After every GP, the ground will start shaking and rumble to warn people of the volcanic eruption. (Either through game chat, or, make the screen actually tremble for half a second)
-After 59mins after the titan has spawned, the trees will begin to turn grey and will be able to be cut down for 100 wood per tree to make a little un-nukable tree base.
-When game ends before 60 minutes, the end-game scenario begins, surviving builders are given 30g and 1000 lumber and the end-game scenario is triggered. Titans will have max. souls, and will trigger avatar form and be immune to magic.
-In order for a builder to survive the debris (which instantly kills any unit or building), the builders must build a unique building from each race.
-In order for the titan to survive, the titan must kill every last builder for souls(lumber replaced by souls), which will transform him and all his minions to have magic immunity to outlast the volcanic debris. Leaver builders give titan souls. (Trigger the titans to have magic immunity and avatar form after all builders are dead in case of leaver builders, and make leaver builders give souls when leaving)

Volcanic bunker stats:
-Cost: 30 Gold and 1k wood (It costs 30G because you get a bonus of 30G at the 4th GP. You should already have 150G worth of gold -from the previous 3 GPs. (90+30+30))
-3s build time. (so you can cancel it if you want)
-Flying unit (you can walk over the building like a Light Energy Tower or Toxic tower), and built on any terrain (so voltron can't blink when you make space for the building)
-Invulnerable. (So builders can't TK your building)
-Can load 2 units in the building if shared control, can store two builders.
-Can only be built after the 4th GP.

Model and animation information:
For the volcano's model, just make it a enlarged version of Panda's tower (or similar).
Some fiery animations for the volcano's debris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... YnJI#t=20s
First boss from Enfo's MT older versions has a really awesome Volcano skill, I'll try to get a video up since I can't find any awesome volcano skills.
Can even have different unique buildings for different races. ie. Goblin's one can be a flying Copter unit, Huntress can have a flying hippogryph, and the rest just buildings taken from ladder or something.

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Explanation:
-Added incentive to prevent staller titans (top 4 problems with ID in this topic: https://entgaming.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=101&t=57240)

Origins and other ideas (How I first came up with this idea):

Spoiler!

Origins (how I first thought up about this idea):

Most of us already know that games lasting over 60 minutes are no fun for the builders.

It'll be cool if the story was changed and builders were stranded on the island trying to wait for help, harvesting what resources they have in order to make a structured base to defend against the titan. When 60mins. is up, helicopters for each and every builder come in after 60 or so minutes then in 5 minute intervals and you get to control the helicopter or boat units to take you to safety.

With this, you can also put optional stuff in where builders can actually kill the trees after the 59min. mark, which would be awesome to guarantee safety and just awesome in general if you want to dig your way out of your own base to try to avoid nukes or something.

More stuff you can put in for titan bonuses can be a temporary main titan invulnerability buff or no Cooldown on any skills for the last seconds of the game or something?

This way, only the surviving builders get to win, and there's actually something for builders to look forward to, instead of afk-ing, dying of boredom or what I do is I just leave after the 40 mins or 50 mins mark. Of course, games won't last any longer than 60 minutes, and builders won't play all risky and fuck around as much (most cases), you can even put some sort of randomisation thing where it'll randomly generate a way to end the game after the 60 min timer is up.

Note: 60 minutes after the game starts is just before 4th GP triggers, since GP only starts when titan spawns. A separate suggestion would be to automatically force the titan to random after a certain amount of time so that games aren't ruined by afk titans or titans leaving before the titan spawn countdown.

Also, I'm not sure how an editor would be able to code this, but some things can be modified so that it is easier to edit.

TL;DR Basically, to prevent stallers, the game will end causing a huge volcanic eruption at 60 minutes, causing builders to win. (I'd prefer 50 minutes, but 60 minutes just to be safe for now)

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

Before I say anything I just want to say that I like the idea and the premise behind this post and have previously read it before but never bothered commenting on the other website.

What worries me about this is that yes stalling was the 4th main problem with ID when the poll happened. But the three above that were "Game is not noob friendly", "Everyone wants to play builder instead of titan", "Builders have nothing to do if they die and just AFK/QUIT".

First: "Game is not noob friendly" - I worry this is only going to complicate the game more. So by solving the 4th problem it's making the first problem a lot worse :/

Second: "Everyone wants to play builder instead of titan" - I don't see this encouraging people to play Titan. I see it being another reason why they don't want to :/ If anything Titan needs buffs to ensure he scales at the same pace that builders scale, I don't know how or where to start with that but if you have ideas then throw them at me I'm against the exp/gold over time solution btw

Third: "Builders have nothing to do if they die and just AFK/QUIT" - Has no affect on this.

Fourth: "Staller titans" - Would it solve Titans stalling? Yes. The problem is some games do go on for 1hour 30mins + and aren't stalling at all. Like when you force feed over kills and noone bases for 40 mins then you end up with 6 bases. This can take almost 40+mins to win after that. It's not stalling but the Titan would lose during that time due to this new constraint.

I love the premise and previously had conversations along the same lines as this to do with "end-game" ideas and it always comes back to the same problem. Every game is different and putting an exact time on when your going to lose makes the problems that are higher priority right now worse.

The idea that we came up with before was not an idea. More like a set of constraints that an end game would need to be based off.
For example the endgame must not be triggered based on time. You could trigger it based on how long it has been since the titan attacked something for example but that holds its own problems of course. The endgame must not interfere with the natural order of play. For example in your scenario if your vs Voltron I just chill at your base with a floating eye and blink in when you have to destroy something to build a bunker. I know theres ways to avoid it but you get what I'm saying. What you realistically need is to watch the games where Titan is stalling and figure out what has caused these situations. For example: Titan skill level made him underfed to break bases > Maybe Titan should have a better tutorial (Not possible on Wc3 ik...). Builders had way to much gold > Give Titan a better way to protect gold mound at the start of the game rather than just allowing builders to indefinitely gold whilst he kills 4 walls and a shelter. A particular baser scaled too fast and too well > Nerf that particular baser. You get what I'm saying....

In my opinion Endgame in this scenario is a way of ignoring balance:/ Even though I love the idea I feel like it would have to be really well thought out, I hope you understand what I mean.

Side-note: The coding side would be ezpz. It's all basically just events based on a timer or in-game trigger with a few game objects with special affects (Probably won't work in Wc3 ID though, I'm not sure ).

[Burn]

@Shadowzz 99% of games end before 60 minutes. It could be 50(preffered)/70/80 even. It's not very game changing. This is a quality of life AKA interesting implementation to make island defense more interesting. Not gonna spam this topic by arguing with you. This will be your only reply. Take it to PM if you have any further questions, so I hope this reply answers your questions.

@Neco Thoughts?

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

I'm not trying to start an argument, I was actually hoping for better ideas for implementation. Sorry if you feel that way :/

[Burn]

I'm all open for ideas, if you want to change any ideas, feel free. Hell, I'll even encourage it.

Just know that I disagree with a lot of things you've said in that post, and I'm not in the mood to argue or spam the topic, and won't further delve on it. But ideas? hell yeah, I'm all for this.

-Burn

[ShadowZz]

If you find something that fits this:

"The idea that we came up with before was not an idea. More like a set of constraints that an end game would need to be based off.
For example the endgame must not be triggered based on time. You could trigger it based on how long it has been since the titan attacked something for example but that holds its own problems of course. The endgame must not interfere with the natural order of play. For example in your scenario if your vs Voltron I just chill at your base with a floating eye and blink in when you have to destroy something to build a bunker. I know theres ways to avoid it but you get what I'm saying. What you realistically need is to watch the games where Titan is stalling and figure out what has caused these situations. For example: Titan skill level made him underfed to break bases > Maybe Titan should have a better tutorial (Not possible on Wc3 ik...). Builders had way to much gold > Give Titan a better way to protect gold mound at the start of the game rather than just allowing builders to indefinitely gold whilst he kills 4 walls and a shelter. A particular baser scaled too fast and too well > Nerf that particular baser. You get what I'm saying.... "

Tell me it and I'll give you mention if it's used.

[Burn]

Thanks for providing valuable input to my end-game suggestion, you spotted a design flaw that I haven't thought of:

1) The endgame must not interfere with the natural order of play. For example in your scenario if your vs Voltron I just chill at your base with a floating eye and blink in when you have to destroy something to build a bunker.

You could fix this by allowing the bunker to be built anywhere like Light energy tower.

-Burn

[narbtit]

Just !end at 60 mins would save neco a lot of time.

[wastedlandering]

TL;DR: I think its a great idea which I would be excited to see happen (did not like it at first, but after some thought, it will be so nice to have), however, I think one could raise some good points as to why it should not be implemented, and there will surely be whiners fighting against such a big change.

The short list
Why yes:
Forces action
Prevents stalling
Adds an end to the game
New breath to the game, -might- attract new players
Gives the game a clear, set objective.

Why no:
-Might- discourage titan even more
Stalling builders/builder advantage
Game changing aspect (balance)
Basic gameplay left to implement

Suggestions to improve the idea:
Titan bonus
Avoiding builder stalling by disable TP / Long build time on bunker

Yes:
The more I think about it, the more I come to like the idea of something forcing the game to move. Anything to encourage more action would actually be great for the game. The best part of an ID game, in my opinion, is early on where the most action takes place, as there's no bases established and everyone is in the mad dash to get gold. The gold mound gets the builders out of hiding, and the gold need/greed creates the perfect scenario for a cat and mouse game. But this aspect of the game tends to disappear once there are a few minions running around, the titan gets some levels, and there's a base or two up.

I would disagree with Shadowzz that this would drive new players away by complicating the game more. One of the first things new players ask in the lobby is: what do I do? The answer from most people give is along the lines of "stay alive and build a base," but it's hard to get across how the game ends. "Yes, we have to kill the Titan. No, we cannot go out and hunt him, he's too strong, he has to attack a base and die, we wait for him to come to us." This can be a pretty big turn off for a lot of players, especially noobs after their base is killed, because they have nothing to do or look forward to. Either AFK as a refugee, or start again from scratch. Something as simple as a big timer stating the game will end might actually keep first timers in the game longer, and help grow the community.

The game having a set time would be a quality of life buff, because you know when you join that the game will end in 60 minutes or less. Sometimes I don't join games, especially late at night, because I would hate to have to quit it, especially if half the team is sitting in my base. We all know how staring at a noob titan siegeing for forty minutes, who has no hope of breaking but will not die because of overly safe play, is boring as fuck.

No:
To play devils advocate on the situation, I think an argument could be made that a time limit will further discourage Titan play. Titan play has a steep, already frustrating learning curve for a lot of players, and losing a game you could have won if you had a couple more siege attempts could be a major turnoff, or if the game legitimately is going to take longer than an hour to play. I have a couple of ideas that might help the scenario, which I'll mention in the last section, but I think Shadowzz is on the right track when he says:

For example the endgame must not be triggered based on time

Balancing Island Defense is tricky enough as it is, and I could see a lot of people crying about this implementation. First off, Island Defense players are -not- good at change (The simple transition from 9d to 4.0 is an example of this), and implementing an end game will cause no end of crying from the nostalgic old timers. But a legitimate concern with having an end game is stalling builders taking the win, when normally the Titan would have won the game. The first thing that comes to my mind is anyone with a teleport ability (especially, say, a Mag with TP stick). It seems like the builders would gain an advantage by being able to win through stalling, while the Titan gains nothing but a fire under his ass with this mode. These are just the first, of what will probably be many, balance issues that will have to be addressed and worked on (probably over a period of time/testing) with this new feature. I can also see people complaining about getting current balance fixes/old features (such as builders/titans) working in 4.0 over implementing new ideas (although personally I think this is another fairly petty concern).

Suggestions:

A -voff mode, to turn this mode off if everyone wants the game to continue going.

Titan bonus: I think that Burn makes a good point when he says:

More stuff you can put in for titan bonuses can be a temporary main titan invulnerability buff or no Cooldown on any skills for the last seconds of the game or something?

I think there should be a bonus or something similar near the end of the game for the Titan, to give him that little extra edge he needs to finally get into that base he almost broke. This could be straight gold or experience given to him, but an idea I have is the titan being able to sacrifice minions for fairly strong buffs. These buffs could be something like:
Gold
EXP/Level boost
Volcano timer delay
Map vision
Aura buffs
Minion sacrifice could add a lot of fun to the last few minutes of the game. This would also make the game fun for new Titan players, or players who don't titan much, by allowing them to power up their main Titan in exchange for a few of those level 3 minions that have been on hold position for over half the game. It would also give the builders a challenge to look forward to, instead of basing at GP then /afk for 30 minutes. A disadvantage to the minion sacrifice idea is if the Titan has no minions, but I suppose he deserves to lose if that's the case. I think it would be more interesting than a static hand-out, and give experienced players a new setting to learn and play with (SAC 3 MINIS, KEEP 3, AND RUSH).

-Volcano disrupts teleport powers when a warning goes off 7 minutes in advance of eruption (cause magnets). This will prevent people just TP sticking around on a support to win the game. Alternatively, have the bunker build time take a while, so that the builder must be standing in a safe place for a while in order to build it and win (lets face it, you shouldn't win as a builder just because you stall in seeds for 10 minutes).


This is what I came up with off the top of my head while sitting in class. I do think an endgame idea/discussion should be taken seriously though.

[Neco]

I like an end goal apart from killing each other (which can lead to stalling), but I don't like volcano's. Or helicopters.

Needs more magic and mystery!

[Burn]

I was thinking any natural disaster will do, but if you want magic?

Army of witches, magical disasters like diseases, curses, (units being turned into critters, buildings into tree and terrain). The main thing is we need a way to stop games from going over 60 mintes (or 50), because that's far, far too long.

-Burn

[SpiritBreaker]

Here are some random ideas that I might elaborate on as well as word and format better later, if something is not clear enough.

I hope some of these spark further ideas. Have a nice brainstorm!

- Builders get an aura that continuously damages other builders.
- TItan and minis get teleported to and temporarily shackled at the mound.
- Titan and minis get a debuff that causes
- No HP regen.
- Max HP/Mana loss.
- Dmg loss.
- Buildings turn on fire and start losing HP, eventually getting destroyed.
- Terrain changes start popping up on the map (uniformly or randomly), causing certain effects for units/buildings on top of them.
- TItan charges a special power after the "end-game" timer runs out, which drastically changes the map (no more "choke points" for easy walling) to be a barren waste land (Titan and minis have to all be at mid to cast the spell, to allow for builder movement around the map, in anticipation of the coming disaster). TItan and minis get severely weakened by the casting of this spell, and builders should also receive a penalty (e.g. lose all items and buildings). They have to rely on skill to try and kill the titan and minis while not getting killed themselves.
- TItan casts a spell that goes wrong - instead of killing all builders, it destroys all buildings and units (except for each Defender's main builder) on the map and transforms the builders into mighty warriors themed around their race. Power advantage goes to builders but they have to work together. Titan has to micro his ass off. Teleporting Titan and minis to mound and uniformly scattering builders around the map sounds like a good idea for this.
- Multiple nodes spawn on the map at places with choke entries (e.g. LB spots) which the titan has to secure. To turn them off, the titan needs to have main or minis at each node at the same time for a certain number of seconds. If the timer runs out before the titan disables the nodes, he will recieve a huge debuff that makes it much easier for the builders to go and kill him. Whether or not the titan turns the nodes off, a new wave of them will spawn soon after, which if the timer runs out, will further debuff him - and so on until a builder can just one hit the titan. Successfully disabling the nodes should give the titan a temporary buff to aid in breaking bases. (This is my favourite one so far. Gives both the builders and the Titan a new objective, which if they succeed in securing, they get a substantial advantage. But at the same time, it's not easy for neither the Titan nor the builders to secure them - leaving minis alone is extremely dangerous. But so is venturing out onto the map without vision, for the builders.)

[LatinChamp]

My suggestion for 60+ min games would be these (of course they are suggested individually, I don't presume all of them to be in at the same time)

Titan:
Option 1: Tit will start winning gold per time when the game hits 60 mins (2g every 45 sec)
Option 2: When the game hits that time he can pick a secondary ultimate abilty from any other tit (some abilities would be restricted for the sake of OP combos)
Option 3: A mini (picked by tit) will be able to have the same items as him


Builders:

Option: When the game reaches 60+ minutes a Shopkeeper/s would spawn near their builder with items (It would spawn for 180 seconds).
The items could be the ones from the tit shop or some new items. This items will be able to be purchased for lumber, but the recipes will need gold to be bought (recipes if the tit items are used). This would allow the Titan hunter to become an average matchup against the titan, and if 2 or 3 TITH with good items come together they can bring a good fight against the titan.

That's what comes to my mind in order to keep the game interesting to play even when it's 60 mins in

[Sat]

finally i will have a reason to quit id for good !!

[Burn]

Road to #1 elo cancelled? More power to me!

-Burn