Feedback and questions

[codiophile]

I absolutely love the game! Thanks a lot for making it!

I've finished the campaign and I'd like to continue playing, but there's nothing to strive towards. I've unlocked everything and I've beaten every level. There are no achievements and nothing else to unlock.

But before talking about how to keep the game interesting after unlocking everything, I'd like to go through the problems I had while playing the campaign. I think the difficulty of the game is well balanced and there is a bit of trial and error before you learn how to defend yourself against the waves, but I enjoyed the learning experience, even though I didn't enjoy losing.

I did lose a few times and I found it very disruptive. There was at least one time when I was busy figuring out a bug in my conveyer belts, when all of a sudden it was game over. Presumably some enemies broke through my defences and destroyed the core, while I wasn't paying attention, but there was no way for me to find out what actually happened. I would have appreciated if there was a replay function to review my mistake and a possibility to reload the game from the last wave, so that I could fix that mistake. Having to start over felt quite harsh.

Winning is equally disruptive when you destroy the enemy core. While busy building stuff, the game suddenly ends. You can see that it is because you destroyed the core, but again, there is no replay function to see how it happened. Also, destroying the enemy core doesn't really make sense combined with a goal of reaching a certain wave. I had to replay the same level a few times, because I was simply too efficient. I destroyed the core before reaching the required wave. If anything, the goal should be reversed: destroy the core before reaching a certain wave. It kind of works the way it is, but it's weird. If it was up to me, destroying the core would be the only goal and I would consider that level completed as soon the player succeeded in destroying the enemy core. The number of waves doesn't really seem relevant here.

While playing the game there were two things that bugged me. Firstly I really wish I could fast forward. I know it's possible to skip to the next wave, but then I don't get all the resources I would get if I waited for the next wave, and lots of times during the campaign, getting resources to unlock stuff was the main goal, more important than reaching a certain wave. Because of the lack of a fast forward I spent a lot of time just waiting. A side effect of this is that the screen would sometimes turn off due to lack of input.

The other thing that bothered me was how tedious it could be to build conveyer belts. It's an acquired skill and it bothers me much less now, but it could still be improved. When connecting two buildings with a conveyer belt that can't be connected with a straight line, it can be very tedious. It would be nice if you could just drag from one building to the other and the game would suggest a path for you. Give the user the ability to adjust the turns before confirming the construction and I would still end up with the path that I wanted, but with a lot less effort. I wasted a lot of time building conveyer belts.

Liquids are probably the most mysterious part of the game. When you build a drill it will let you know the efficiency of the drill based on its placement. For a pump there is no such information. I still don't know if a pump is less effective if it doesn't stand completely in water or if it is enough that it just touches the water with a corner to get full efficiency. I also sometimes end up with buildings undersupplied even though the maths suggests that they shouldn't be.

I tried to unlock everything in the core database, but there seem to be 5 units that are impossible to unlock. There's no factory to build them and I don't see how else you could encounter them in the game. I have to ask what the purpose is of having units that can't be unlocked? Are they for future use, or what's their purpose?

Finally I have to talk about the performance of the game. As I said in the beginning, I've finished the campaign, so I'm now just trying to beat as many waves as possible, because it's the only thing that is left to do. After playing through the campaign, I know the game well enough to build self-healing defences that can withstand hundreds of waves without hardly needing any repairs. I play on Android, so I don't know about other platforms, but when facing hundreds of enemies your FPS drops to less than 1 (but it's still reported as 1 in the game) and every second of game time takes about 10 seconds of real time. This is true whether the enemies are on screen or not, so I'm assuming that this is due to all the collision detection of all the projectiles.

At the beginning of the game I have a steady 60 FPS, but after building a big complex system, it's not uncommon that the FPS is around 30 in between waves. This bothers me much less, since the game is still playable, but it's still something that would be nice to improve if possible.

I'm a developer. I haven't written any Java in a long time, but I would be interested in investigating these performance problems. I used to love optimising algorithms in college. Not sure if I'm as smart as I used to be, but I should still enjoy giving it a go. I don't know if you could point me in the right direction and help me get started?

If I had smooth performance and fast forward, the game would be much more enjoyable for me, but I would still lack purpose. It's a bit like Minecraft where you can do anything, but you don't know what to do. For me the best thing would be to extend the campaign, but I don't think you would be able to add new content as quickly as I am able to play through it, so if there were achievements to aim for, that would be a nice way to pass the time. It would also be nice if there was easily accessible multiplayer, but it's hard to fit a multiplayer game into a 5 minute break, so I'm more interested in an extended single player experience, since those are easy to pause and resume.

One last thing. I installed the game on another Android device and all my progress was synced from my first device. However, it seems like it was a one time sync during installation, because after that, it didn't seem to sync any progress between the devices. I was hoping to start the game over on the other device, but I didn't dare clearing the data on that device, fearing that it might be synced to my first device, where I've made all the progress, so I uninstalled it. Could you explain how that sync is working?

This is the best game I've played in a long time, so I wanted to give in depth feedback and hopefully get involved in the development.

Thanks again for a great game!

[1RedOne]

Just want to second how weird it was to be planning a new complex to get blasting compound or something and have the stage abruptly end because my units widdled the defenses down to nothing.

Really, it would be nicer to have units behave like StarCraft units, where I can bundle them into a group and set a rally point, then direct them to attack units in order. As is, I probably waste 20x the units I need because of them mindlessly walking directly to the enemy core, maybe fire a few shots at turrets or salvoes along the way.

I found most of my victories happening when I built successive waves of long range artillery turrets closer and closer to the enemy base to take out their most damaging guns.

If I could instead focus fire down units and have control over them, this problem goes away.

[codiophile]

Really, it would be nicer to have units behave like StarCraft units, where I can bundle them into a group and set a rally point, then direct them to attack units in order. As is, I probably waste 20x the units I need because of them mindlessly walking directly to the enemy core, maybe fire a few shots at turrets or salvoes along the way.

@1RedOne Did you try the Command Center? I never bothered, because the enemy is easy to defeat anyway, but you can keep your units back and attack with all of them at the same time.

I found most of my victories happening when I built successive waves of long range artillery turrets closer and closer to the enemy base to take out their most damaging guns.

I normally take out the enemy turrets with my ship. The enemy normally doesn't build anti-air to defend their ground defences, and even when they do, I can normally take out their ammo supply. I normally don't even upgrade my ship, since the default one is nimble with decent range. Combine this strategy with the command center and you can send a huge wave through a barely defended path.

[Jaeiya]

I want to second the idea of a fast-forward mechanism that not only sends the next wave, but also calculates total resources gained within the time that you skipped. As far as replays are concerned...I don't think that's necessary, but definitely a way to stay on the map after a loss, where it would essentially be a read-only environment (of course ship movement would be the only allowed action).

[ksw1984]

• Multiplayer griefers circumvent /votekick by counting on 5 min cooldown -

I've just noticed in multiplyer, especially in ATTACK games, that griefers work around a votekick. I do not know whether this is a game issue or a server setup issue.

1. they initiate a votekick themselves. sometimes other players vote to kick. This starts a 5 min coldown for votekicks during which the griefers delete a lot of essential infrastructure
2. the griefers work in a team and directly start deleting infrastructure. After one is votekicked, the others mock that they now have free reign to continue deleting

This does lead to players leaving the game because their builds get destroyed. In addition, dhe griefers seem only to be kicked for 15 minutes, after which the same starts again. If in a team there will always be griefers because of the 5 min votekick cooldown.

PS: Votekick is very hard if players have colored user names. It seems one needs to add ome special formatting to correctly call /votekick [playername]...

[dragon76n]

My son and I have really been enjoying the game. Overall, we love the game and I think it's the most fun that I've had with any tower defense style game.

The recent update that we had to get in order to play against each other was unfortunately a bit disappointing - mostly because the ghost images of the structures that once existed are quite confusing. We both think that it was better before that visual existed.

We understand that it might be a helpful reminder to see what was in a place that had been attacked, but most of the time it is more confusing because the destroyed buildings didn't used to show up so it was easy to see when something was gone. Now it looks like something is there and when you're playing it on a phone or zoomed out more, it's even harder to see what's there. Also, if you build something different over that spot, you still get the ghost image, so now you're looking at something even more confusing... which is the real one and which is the fake?

Please remove the ghost images from structures that were destroyed. At the very least, if this feature really needs to stay, at least give players an option to shut it off.

[kolosis13]

I passed the company, and, recently, decided to play on an unstable version. Downloaded the latest build from Anuken, installed and launched. However, faced with the problem, I did not find any changes. And here I have a question: I incorrectly installed the version or in the unstable version there are no especially big changes concerning the original. If someone knows how to properly install it, or what changes in the unstable version, please help.

[TechnologyClassroom]

The abrupt end of the destroy enemy core levels was jarring to me too. A solution could be to unlock the launch button after the core is destroyed. The level would then be too easy to gain resources so a new wave entry location would need to appear.

[codiophile]

The abrupt end of the destroy enemy core levels was jarring to me too. A solution could be to unlock the launch button after the core is destroyed. The level would then be too easy to gain resources so a new wave entry location would need to appear.

@TechnologyClassroom I like this idea, but I don't think a new wave entry location is necessary. I think the waves could continue as before from the same place. That also makes it easier to implement, because every level would need an additional spawn point added otherwise. Also, if the spawn point is moved, it could mean that you get ambushed in an undefended location and you lose the game when you were supposed to be winning it.

[TechnologyClassroom]

@codiophile That would be easier to implement too. The enemy base location would continue to be a spawn point.

I kind of like the idea of the risk/reward balance of having a different spawn point too. You have 5 minutes to decide to launch or face 10 waves from a different direction before another opportunity. I would be in favor of a harder difficulty, but either way would be an improvement.

[Anuken]

Most of the feedback here has been addressed or will no longer be valid with 6.0, so I'll be closing this.

[GitHubUser-B]

Most of the feedback here has been addressed or will no longer be valid with 6.0, so I'll be closing this.

Hello