Gridlocker
Posted by Mike, November 6th, 2009 | 14 Comments
High Scores
| Rank | User | Score | Level | Wave | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | mark | 372620 | ADDICTIVE | 100 | 0:08:41.00 |
| 2 | mark | 372092 | ADDICTIVE | 100 | 0:33:36.44 |
| 3 | MoneyMike | 369802 | ADDICTIVE | 100 | 0:12:44.38 |
| 4 | MoneyMike | 369658 | ADDICTIVE | 100 | 0:13:29.44 |
| 5 | Xungosdarkblade | 367386 | ADDICTIVE | 100 | 0:16:25.00 |
Overview
Use the middle island to build a maze and force the enemy to take the path that you want. This map contains a mix of fixed path and mazing elements. Before any towers are placed the attackers will move directly top to bottom with out any interference. Building a center maze that forces the attackers to take the side roads lengthens their trip and gives you the advantage.
14 Comments
I’m not so sure I agree with the idea of losing points for selling towers. There is already 3 negative impacts associated with selling a tower, and impacting the score isn’t really necessary (though getting rid of the bonus for simply building a ton of useless towers would prevent a lot of selling).
There are 3 negative impacts from selling a tower already. First, you lose 33% of what you spent on the tower if it is in play for an entire wave. Second, while that tower is in play you aren’t earning interest on the money spent. Third, the time it takes for the sale of the tower to complete increases with each sale.
That third factor will really become a play when the difficulty is signficantly increased (either via difficulty increase or infinite wave mode). Once that happens and the maze requires juggling to win, the increased sell time ultimately will be a factor.
To simply penalize the score for selling isn’t really needed in my humble opinion.
As far as the idea of creeps that damage towers, it is a pretty neat concept (though it has been done in many TD games). However, it brings in a lot of challenges associated with balance. It also ends up creating a need for additional micromanagement that can become tedious.
I’ve seen it taken to the extreme in games like Bubble Defense, where the "demon" waves kill your towers. I’ve beaten every level in that game on the hardest level too, and the added feature actually gets quite annoying.
I would deal with it if the developers liked the idea and implemented it, but I’m not so sure I think it fits with ATD’s general style. This is actually a nearly flawless rendition of both forms of traditional tower defense (maze based and road based).
I think a little more tower balance, a few more maps, and some form of increased difficulty modes (infinite waves, double health mode, or limited towers [either a limited number of towers or limited to specific towers {such as only allowing frost and cannon towers}]) would be ideal to perfect it…
And one other thing to consider (and admittedly this strays from the traditional concept of a tower defense game), you can have some enemy units that "fight back" – i.e. damage your existing towers, requiring them to be repaired or rebuilt. Some creeps could be more effective against particular kinds of towers. This would keep the flow of the game dynamically changing. And maybe this would be better added as a secondary kind of difficulty.
One other item you might want to consider – a point penalty for taking down a tower (we are already penalized financially, and think the penalty is fair). I see this as a bit of a chess game, and in strategy games, one must be able to see ahead many moves, and be penalized for not having foresight. So, one should lose points for taking down a tower. The higher the upgrade level of the tower, the bigger the penalty. Say, for example, 1000 points x the upgrade level. And maybe a multiplier based on the original cost of the tower (1 for gun, 2 for cannon, flak & frost, 3 for missile, 4 for lighting). So, taking down a level 1 gun tower costs you 1000 points. Taking down a level 4 missile tower costs 12,000 points. Ouch! That’ll teach you to think ahead. And definitely discourage taking down level 6 missile towers at the end of the game to force up the upgrade bonus by building a whole bunch of cheapie gun towers.
LOL guys… you’re still miles away from making something I can’t beat. I haven’t had to juggle even when testing my own limits. Once things get really hard and juggling is a must, then things will be truly interesting.
I’d like to see an infinite wave option, as that would truly let me show off some skill at getting a high score. You guys have already put down a nice foundation for allowing it since you have a "sell penalty" and towers take longer to sell as you sell more.
Thanks very much for the feedback, we are in the process of working on a re-balance of the game to address some of the strategic concerns and we’ll have another look at the bonus weighting.
On topdown, gridlocker and other sidelining maps you won’t gain anything by building extra towers and on mazing maps, only increasing the maze length will improve your score. The motivation for the bonuses was to encourage a balance of game play, obviously to simply win you can follow whatever strategy you like but we wanted to let players work on another level to optimize their scores overall in ways that might force you into certain strategies.
On maps like grasstop, optimizing maze length is fairly trivial but on something like island hopping it becomes much more difficult to squeeze that extra step into your maze.
We’ll definitely use all of the great suggestions that have come in so far to improve the game. Maybe we can even come up with a difficulty level that not even MoneyMike can beat (although not likely).
Exciting things are on the way don’t worry, we’re still hard at work on this!
Mike,
I have to agree with your last comment, that filling up the board with towers that serve no purpose doesn’t demonstrate any real skill. Plus, it is a little boring. I would suggest that, for the next release, possibly consider revising the scoring so that the *fewer* towers that are used, the higher the score. This would be a better reflection of skill, since tower positioning would be crucial to a high score. Also, you might want to reconsider the diversity bonus a little. For example, putting up a flak tower on this map doesn’t really make much sense, since there are no planes.
Otherwise, though, as close to a perfect game as I’ve come across.
Really the way to go for a top score on any map is to maximize the length of the maze and get as many bonuses as possible. Use at least 1 of each tower to maximize the diversity bonus.
Try to rush out waves as quickly as you can handle to increase the early bonus (built into base score). Since upgrades impact total points better than money, any extra money should be spent filling the map with upgraded gun towers.
I’m not so sure I like this tactic (as it takes time and doesn’t show any indication of skill), but it works for getting a top score on just about any map. This is actually the only map I don’t have the top spot on, and I’m just too lazy to take it lol…
Except on this map where i was able to squeeze into 5th…..
What is the best way to max out the score? I keep coming up about 17,000 short of the top score on each level….
Mark… you’re killing me with your scores on these road-based maps. On any of the non-air maps I just can’t come remotely close to your score.
I finished the map with over 200 early bonus, the longest possible path, and the entire map filled with level 4 and 5 Gun towers. Maxed diversity bonus as well, and I still can’t come close.
I’m hitting the same wall on Topdown Shooter and Confusion as well. On all of these maps I’m using like 5 Missile turrets to do all the damage. Got any tips?
Based on your time, I think I might have figured it out
I’m getting faster, but I can’t figure out the score thing. I am sure there is a trick I am missing. I found 1 trick, but not a score trick…..
whew…i finally beat MoneyMike’s high score…it took a while but i figured it out
are you going to release the map editor?
i really want to make some maps