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.