What if...

[dcode]

...there were a window of opportunity for CreepTD to return?

Same old game.
Modern tech.

Hypothetical. For now.

If that window opened, what would you want preserved at all costs?
What deserves improvement?
And what would ruin it instantly?

It's no secret, that I also played around with a modern version, so I got some ideas there.
I want to start a list so we can have a discussion as a community about it. (Whoever is left to read this...)

Things to keep:

• I really enjoy the async part of the game. Most actions don't run instantly.
  
  • You can react to stuff (E.G. when someone sells his defense → send your troops)
  • You need some skill in order to sell at the right time. (You need to know that your defense will kill everything and commit to selling before things are dead, in order to send more creeps to increase you income)
• Ability to make own maps and themes
• Ava and Coop
• Elo based Skill system
• Spectator Mode
• Free Chat
• Pausing Games

Things to improve:

• Screen Resolution
• Maybe some creep / defense factions with different abilities
  
  • We already have regeneration, unslowable, fast and tanky / spawning
  • We could have more spawning, stronger than normal but less income next round, stronger but more bounty, healing others, shielding others, etc.
• List on Steam
• Introduce Test Games (no skill changes, might reduce twinks? → Or connect with steam accounts?)
• Custom games
  
  • E.G. We liked to play basics only or slow / basic only
  • Maybe we could have more detailed leader boards → Ava, Coop, Survival, Variants, Combined
• Reconnect to games

Things I don't like:

• Flying creeps
• Creeps that destroy / deactivate buildings
• Ingame Transactions are ok, but shouldn't improve Creeps, Towers, Reaction Time, Income, Playtime (I always joked about making people pay to spectate the games... still ok for me. )

That's all for now, I may post more stuff when I finished work.

[MJochen]

Things to keep:
* async to allow reaction
* amount of maps is lately a lot better. (but they could be grouped a bit better)
* modes are good (bounty/easy/med/hard/coop/ava/spectator)
* pausing is good (perhaps possibility to have a "major" pause if all players agree)
* Elo ranking is perfect
* kinds of creep and towers is (for me) perfect. There are varieties with too many creep and tower-types.
* graphics are not overloaded which is good. (But windowing and more details would be nice)
Be careful to not overload the new version with to much complexity.

Things I miss:
* I really miss the possibility to look into old games with their settings on the CRTD server (to have an idea how to build for a record). Even better would be to have the whole game recorded.
* possibility to have more than 4 players participating at ava
* possibility to self-define restrictions (to turrets and creep which can be built/sent) i.e. basics only
* to avoid twinks, there could be a time-restriction where skill is frozen and only the theoretical gain/loss is shown
* championships would be nice. Perhaps divided into regions (countries) and the top of them compete for world.

Suggestions:
* avoid any kind of pay to win.
* add a possibility to earn some money all the same (to finance the server / programmer(s))
* the game would be perfect to be played on mobile devices like phones/tablets in addition

Some things I want to add to the discussion.

I also wanted to have Ava / Coop for more than four people. I think it's doable, but the balancing might be a problem. If there are that many people sending creeps, single target towers may become impracticle. You could increase their stats, but that would make them to strong in 1on1 where atm. splash damage already isn't that strong.
So it needs a fine balance or maybe as I said different tower factions. Which would work until some players get eliminated.

I could see people arguing, that it takes skill to read the board and play the right towers, which is true to some extend, but I am not sure if that's the whole picture here. Still... I also want 6 player games.

MJochen also mentioned mobile devices. I am also split about this.
I think it's the best way to attract casual players and it might be fun. It's the future somehow...
But it also limits what we can get on a desktop version.

Dcode posted a mobile-video on discord. You can see the game working there. Nice.
But you also only see one map. I don't know how good you could see the whole game; the maps of the others and play accordingly. If you want to see everything, you might have problems with placing your own turrents / change their settings.
But that aside, there might be other constraints a mobile version would bring to desktop. Atm. I am not creative and can't name an example, but I am sure there will be stuff. I don't think the game can get to complex / to timing based with an UI that has to fit on a mobile screen. So we need to be careful there.

[Rambo196]

Überarbeitung des Incomes für die Zeilen 1-4 von 10/9/8/7% auf 10/9,5/9/8,5% oder alles 10% oder ähnlich.

Grund ist ganz einfach: Auf einfach zu verteidigenden maps spammen manche Spieler nur Reihe 1 bis ins endgame und haben damit das höchste income, was nicht im Sinne des Erfinders ist.

For everyone who can't speak German, this is roughly what Rambo said:

Rework the income for rows 1-4 from 10/9/8/7% to 10/9.5/9/8.5%, or 10% for all rows, or something like that.

The reason is simple: On easily defensible maps, some players spam Mantas until the endgame, to achieving the highest income, which is not the desired outcome.

I have to agree and disagree again.
Yeah, I also never liked that that was an option and that you could just hide behind the other players who are doing the work.

On the other hand the different income levels were a resource to come back into the game from behind. If everything had 10% growth rate, I think whoever is ahead can't be beaten. So having a strong early defense (Or none) would be the only thing you need in order to win the rest of the game.
That's not cool.

I think it's part of the strategy, to send low level stuff, so your opponent won't build defense. You might get 10% income boost instead of 9% or fewer, but your opponent doesn't need to invest into his defenses, so he also gets a lot of income, while you might have to spend your money to build defenses.
Also if your opponent doesn't build any defense, then you might start a huge attack out of nowhere. It's not like there is no strategy involved.

The problem comes from different game modes, I feel. Mostly from playing Ava, where you can hide behind the other players who push each other (and their defenses), while you push income. Defending 2 or 3 opponents at the same time doesn't make that much of a difference.

[Seraph07]

Me rambling a bit here, but my 2 cents anyway.

Better visuals for everyone. Vector Vision is currently a pay-to-win feature that gives a slight advantage. Map designs from volunteers are sometimes lacking in quality regarding the visibility of creeps.

New survivor ai.

Better graphics, bring back the game stats after a game finished.

Better pathing, so that creeps can actually go circles? Better solution for tunnels? Do we want to go 3D with pathing?

How can we improve the beginner experience? Big maps are often played by new people. How do they experience the game? Why do people stopp playing? Atm we have more survivor games than all vs all, this was different back in the days (I think). With a relaunch, CTD 2.0 or something, what does the player want, what do we want to improve?

Maybe more points but a game started just now. See ya again tomorrow.

Hopefully!
This Game need more Players! Discord, Steam listening and some Promotion!
AvsA just Work with much Players, the Rest run since years.
After Player recruiting you can spend time in new shit for the Game.
Greets

Hi! The vid looks great, and we sure hope that this can eventually work CTD is the favourite game of all time of many of us, and for many years, a post like this was the stuff of dreams.

I agree with everything Knappe said on his first post. Besides that, here are some ideas / suggestions, from a competitive point of view. Some of them are perhaps not the best to attract new players, and some of them may be too hard to implement, but if the playerbase is eventually there, the competitive scene would probably benefit to see the following:


QoL features

-Auto queue for ava games (in your skill bracket). This would make it easier for new players to just log in and play.

-Keep the individual pause, and add "unlimited" pauses if (total alive players - 1) agree, as they are usually used to wait for someone that is afk. This would need to be able to ve vetoed by any player with a "refuse pauses" option, so that 3 players can't hold the 4th hostage.

-The ability to watch replays without a paywall is not only good for getting better and achieving a higher average skill of the playerbase, but also for content creation and thus diffusion of the game.

-"Just for fun" games, which are currently only available via the testing maps.

-A (true) full map list.


Game design

-Custom games is a must to keep high both the replay value and the new player retention.

-Keeping the low amount of towers would be on the "preserved at all costs" field. The ability to learn precisely what each tower can do has forced us to minmax the defense, and the player with the best defense ideas usually wins. If they were 12 towers for example, the stuff to learn/remember would be too much for the average player, and even if people became competitive and knowledgeable in every tower, the micromanaging would be too much. If any tower at all is added, I believe a boost tower is a good option that doesn't take the role of an already-existent tower.

-On the other hand, adding status effects besides slow would be dangerous terrain that I wouldn't like personally, as the complexity of both coding them and understanding them enough to use them competitively/optimally would get too big.

-About the "spamming 10% income creeps": adding to what Knappe has said, I'd argue that income farming it is not a real problem but a skill. In short maps you can't do it, in medium maps you have to balance it with attacks anyways or you fall behind, and in long maps income farming is just the natural consequence of having a lot of time to defend. The ability to adapt to different maps is a core part of the player skills. After all, the slogan is "Are you smart enough?"

That said, I agree that the action of spamming 44444444 looks silly, but a solution would have to keep in mind to not ruin other aspects of the fight. For example, limiting creep rate would hinder the ability of sending distractions (bunch of mercs so slows dont hit a toucan). Perhaps a capped invest button could work, so 444444 is replaced by "Invest at 10% up to $50.000/round", then it goes to 9% up to.. $600.000 I think is the toucan limit, etc. If it will run on mobile, *some* solution is required as mobile players can't just hold down the button.

-Potential feature of generic universal upgrades, for example:
- +x% to all towers (range, dmg, splash area, splash dmg, ...).
-Double the bounties $.
-An interesting one is to make basic towers attack x100+, and scale range and cost too. The goal would be for them to replace ions, as they have the same role as them, just in different stages of the game. I believe one of the greatest features of CTD is that, while the towers quantity is low, each one is useful during most of the game. Having basics be useful in late game would reinforce that.

Those upgrades could have either $ cost or income cost. Yes, they are mathematically equivalent, but the pros of making them cost income would be:
-Not hindering your damage output.
-Not having to save (a big attack would probably just be better).
-Making them useful as a last resort.
-Spend it all in the endgame for the last attack/defense.
I think this feature would be what makes it a new game, instead of a renewal of the same game (which would be great on its own anyways).

-Potential feature of special positions in the map. As seen in other TDs, spots with +dmg/+range/... could make for interesting alternatives an more defense options.

-Agree with Knappe on the points about mobile, it's a double edged sword. The only multiplayer TD game on mobile that I can think of is Bloons TD Battles, and the differences are huge (player count, grid, need of precision). While the video demo is already there and so I guess part of the work is already done, a mobile game has a lot of limitations of what it can be and not be. Altough the first thing we need is more players and mobile is the best way... Tough stuff.


In-game features

-Clicking on creep to target it! I think this is the single feature that would make defense a lot more versatile and less frustrating. We currently do this anyways in hacky ways: setting teslas to weakest on late defense, setting rockets to fastest so they attack the bunch of zeuses at the front instead of the late zeus (that has more HP) or the early shark (that is farther in the map), setting slows to strongest so they target the dem and not the mercs...
This, plus a tower toggle to NOT be overriden by the clicked creep, would make skill matter a lot more in the defense, and the fact that you can only select one creep at a time would limit the micromanaging.

-A better vector vision (even if behind a pro account/subscription) makes the overall level better. After NEb0 modded the game with that, we discovered new ways to defend old maps, as some positions were unintuitively better. Perhaps in 2010 that was already discovered, but it didn't translate into 2013+ until an actually usable vector vision was available.

-Tower toggle to turn them on/off. Afaik this is already in the code but unused?
Currently, at high level, (in medium or longer maps), the game is mostly slow tower manipulation. Everyone knows how to attack, most players know how to keep income high, the main thing deciding a match is defense, and using slows to break up combos, compress creeps, and separate pairs/trios is the main micromanaging that a player is doing most of the game. Having the ability to toggle slows on/off instead of selling and rebuilding would give us the freedom to get better at other aspects of defense, and push more the limits of the skill in the game.

-Toggle hp numbers on/off, to know if you need to buy an extra tower for late defense. We already do that by watching the hp bar, and while some people could say that knowing which shade of red you can kill is a skill in itself... Well, I guess that when we say it like that it sounds just as silly as 4444444.

-Agree with everyone else on the delay/async being part of the game's heart, barring one exception: recieving the money from extra income a few seconds after the new round starts. For example, with $2.000 + $1.900 inc you can send a ray and then have to wait a few seconds to send the second one instead of being able to send it instantly on the new round. Most would agree that choosing the separation of the creeps you send is a skill, and that particular delay removes agency from the players.



That would be all the ideas I have. The best luck on this dcode, and I hope it eventually works out as a modern fully fledged-out game!

[dcode]

Thanks, folks, that's very good feedback already.

What I currently imagine is a faithful remake of the game, with minor corrections where necessary. So this would not be a new game with a bunch of new mechanics, but primarily a modernization effort.

• Same flow, timings, towers, creeps, and overall feel
• High-resolution graphics
• Broad platform support, including mobile

This scope likely addresses most of the suggestions already, but there are some subtleties worth pointing out:

• When it comes to general gameplay, minor technical corrections are necessary for determinism, but are very limited. So far, it only affects rocket tracking, in that safer math is used, with some tick-per-tick diffs, but without materially changing the overall behavior.
• With mobile as part of the plan, there come some constraints. On a phone, a four-player overview would render too small to be playable, so a practical approach is to focus on the local board by default on mobile and allow swiping to other boards, while keeping important information like player names and lives always visible
• The harder question is map size. Large maps like 32x16 or 32x32 are much more difficult to present well on smaller screens without hurting playability. Because of that, my current thinking is to focus on 16x16 maps first, for now accepting the restrictions it implies for Coop. Thoughts?
• Speaking of maps, these preserve their paths, but need new high-resolution graphics (~4x original resolution). Given the sheer amount of maps we have, that's quite some work, and even with the advent of our new AI overlords' capabilities it's tricky. If the map maker community that is still around has ideas, let me know
• Speaking of Coop, or more generally modes, the current prototype focuses on AvA (Versus) and Sandbox, Send Next and Send Random not being planned, and Survivor is not yet implemented but planned. There seems to be some interest in exploring a more deliberate Survivor revisit here, and that would fit well with how I imagine to approach Survivor.
• Earlier income for sent creeps is technically possible, but not necessarily ideal, because it introduces an unpredictable element that depends on network latency. Particularly with mobile part of the plan, strictly sticking to the delayed/async nature of the game seems like the sensible choice here.
• Pay-to-win is off the table, of course.

Keep the feedback coming