OK, a couple of days ago I started a defense map. It's called Time Defense, because you defend the structure of time itself from collapse! *dun dun dun*

The map is based on two things: buying/upgrading units and using spells. Both cost the same resource - money (minerals) - which you acquire by killing enemies that run along a path. The defense type is 'individual', meaning that you worry only about your arena and do not interact with other players, except mocking them and their defenses.

What's special about it? Your units get stacked in 'cells' (marked with Khalys Crystal on the screenshot). This system doesen't use zerg's burrow ability to stack the units - it can stack almost any ground unit as long as it fits into a 1x1 tile space.

There are three types of units:
Ghost => Hero Ghost (good vs. small targets)
Hydra => Hero Hydra (good vs. big targets)
Templar (good vs. everything damage-wise, but loses out in attack speed and range, as well as stacking speed and cost)

As for the spells, here is the current idea:

1. Berserk: Gives all your fighters in the selected cell to P7, who has 255 upgrades, allowing them to rape everything. At the end of the round the berserk ends and the units die.

2. Meteor: a meteor falls at the selected point. Duh. Deals a ton of damage.

3. Chain lightning: distributes N damage among all enemies in the arena. N is to be decided.

4. Stun: stuns all enemy movement for some time.

(maybe more, not sure).

If you're wondering how will I deal damage, the answer is Direct Damage System.

If you're wondering how will you select points for spells and unit creation, the answer is 'Corsair'.

If you're wondering how will you select the units you buy and cast spells, the naswer is 'dropship system'.

Now, the only important thing left for me to decide is the size of the arena. In the current setup, it is screen-size, and all players get constant center-screen. This makes it both cool and uncool. So I'm here asking you guys what would you prefer: a screen-sized arena or a big arena?


Here's how it will look if it will be left screen-size. The white represents the hood.

...help me decide, SEN!

Did you get this idea from coco defense?

May I inquire as to how it's done? I assume it's using the fact the a khalis crystal or some other powerup can be created over any unit, and once it jumps off of it a location locks the unit into place or something?

I never played 'coco defense', I got this idea independently, even though it might have been done before.

Yes, any powerup can be created over a unit and push it off. That's the basic idea.

What's the map about? A kind of Naruto Battle/Hero Arena?

Can I shoot you? Did you even read the post?

How do you plan on integrating themes of time into player's defenses?

The story goes like this (don't laugh, it took me 0.0001 of a second to make this up):

In the far future, the time machine was created. Soon after, it got into the wrong hands and evil-doers began sending horrors of the future into the past. If you let too much evil of the future into the past, time will collapse. You'll be killing evil monsters such as the book burner, the robodog, plastic dinner and hoverfish.

Also, your life will be displayed as sand in a sandclock on the minimap. The more you leak, the more of it goeds to the lower portion of the clock.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 28 2009, 5:44 pm by JaFF.

Even reading the post is not required. Reading the title would be enough.

I like the hourglass idea for lives, very creative.

How about a spell that 'Rewinds time' and the units are ordered back to the start temporarily.

Instead of stun, make it like "Time Stop" or something like that to fit the theme better.

You should make spells that affect other players, like fast forward time for them, or like make their units flash invincibility or negate some of their units.

Though it is an awesome thing to have, I'm not gonna go through the trouble of making it, because even with a shitload of work, it still won't be a reliable enough system. It would be easy if we were talking about player 'heros' or something similar; these, however, are homogenious enemy units.
Will do. Thank you.
If you're posting an idea, make sure it agrees with everything else in the map. How will fucking up other player benefit me? I'd have to make a completely different map for this... something similar to spawn defense. So for this particular map, players do not interact.

The general purpose this topic was to hear your opinions on the arena size, so please share them if you have any.

The Arena should most definitely be screen size, what would be the reason in making it any bigger? My only thing about this defense is that it really seems rather boring, I mean, once you figure out a good technique, there's really no way to slightly tweak it or anything, there's no making mazes of units or anything like that, it's just spamming as much of one unit as you can, and it seems to me that it could easily get boring. Of course, I got bored of defenses in general about 2 years ago, so that may be my problem.

While the special abilities add somewhat to the game, I can still see it getting boring.

What is the goal to win in this, are you trying to get through the defense faster than other players, or what?

I think it'd be better if the further you progressed the more spells and units you unlocked, and in the end you destroy your opponet by beating him to the finish or by using offensive spells that cause his demise.

Main reason why it should be screen-sized: IMO, the corsair should not have to move at all, heck, you should even make triggers to keep it in the same spot.

I think it should be screened size too.

Though I was concerned with it becoming boring too, I just think all maps become boring without player-to-player interaction. But I just don't want to make another spawn defense. So either we figure out how to have more interation between players or it stays as it is.

The goal is to get through all levels.
This is the current plan, except you have all units available from the very start and you unlock spells as you progress.

I was thinking about this player interation thing, and here's what I came up with:
Each player defends their own arena. When a round ends, all players are given the opportunity to influence what the next level will be like. Of course, the more money you put into it, the more 'influence' you have. There are several categories by which the attacking units can be classified:

1. Speed. If you have all your units stacked in one cell, fast units will get through as opposed to slower units.
2. Size. Since you are either pro-big units or pro-small units, you should fight for your interests in this area as well.

HP of the units may or may not be a 'parameter' you influence. I just feel like making it something that increases naturally to put additional pressure on the players.

How does this sound guys? Have something to add?

Spawn defense doesn't have spells.