Castle

by Rushnut
Castle
They are coming... Defend yourself!
ID:1315402
 
Hey people, a few of you know that I've been working on a Castle remake, and as it comes to fruition there's a few minor balance changes and tweaks I'd love to get some community feedback on, so that I can sure myself of these changes. I wouldn't want to stray too far from the winning formula that Castle has, so without further ado, a changelog! Scroll past the first two sections of this if you want to get to the real good stuff!

Already complete changes:
* - Logout failsafes
No longer when you leave do you get kicked out like on Castle, instead you'll be put into stasis for 5 minutes, if you rejoin within that time, then you'll be put straight back into the game. This is true even for the blue player, which brings me to my next point...

* - Blue player cycling
Currently if the blue player logs out for any reason the game simply resets as nobody else can start. Instead of this, the game now cycles the blue player to the green player (player two), so the game can carry on trucking!

* - Multiple clicks, less macroing!
When you buy a unit you enter buy mode, and clicking places that unit and deducts the cost. Currently on Castle you have to place one unit, enter buy mode again, and repeat. This lead to players macroing a lot of the keys (I know I had litterally a full keyboard of macros!). Now you can place as many units as you like, and to exit buy mode you click cancel.

* - Hub based Scores and Medals
Abra's PHP attempts were pretty weak, and as such the highscores and suchlike never worked. Using the built in BYOND system I've created a much nicer working high scores and record keeping.

Bug Fixes:

* - Idlers bug
Currently if you idle for too long on Castle, through multiple resets and the suchlike it will cause an issue where the game will think you're playing, even when you're not, meaning gold income per wave and suchlike is screwed up. My new engine completely does away with all that!

* - Placing units on walls
My engine won't allow people to place units on the walls (This one might disgruntle the hardcore fans of Castle who actually know the trick ;) )

* - Negative cash via send money
Common known exploit, fixed.

* - Lightning Dragon spam death
Pretty self explanatory

* - Time Wizard spam death
Yeah

* - Issues with overlays sticking, i.e nets
Solved

* - Hack Detector going haywire
Retuned the entire thing from the ground up, should no longer cause any kerfuffles.

* - Numerous others!
This isn't just an update, it's a complete reprogram of the game from the ground up. As such a lot of the small bugs and idiocies of the old game no longer exist! If you want to ask of me if any specific bug (or feature!) still exists, feel free below!





Now onto the good stuff.

Castle is a game which 90% of the people that play it, already know how to beat. Whilst I don't want to stray too far from the original, there are a few tweaks/changes that I'd really, REALLY appreciate some heavy feedback on.

* - Pitfalls
Currently Death Spikes are overpowered. Insanely so. For those of you that don't know, death spikes instantly kill any normal unit that steps on them, with a %age chance to do so based off the Trap level (level 100 means 100% chance to insta-kill).
This creates a few problems, but also a few oppertunities. I'm speaking of course, of necro farming. The farming of a wave that gives you a ridiculous amount of money, and sets you up for easy street for the last few waves before the Wizard. Now whilst I enjoy necrofarming, I have to admit that when something's too strong, it's just too strong. There's a few fixes, I could make necro spawns not generate cash, but that sort of removes any risk/reward gameplay and it also doesn't solve the deeper rooted problem of deathspikes just being... boring.
Once you beat the wizard, what do you do? You get level 600 traps, and you spam go until the Minotaur. Rinse and repeat. It's boring! Those waves inbetween the minas, ARE retuned to be stronger each iteration! You SHOULD be fighting them, not simply having them insta die to your death spikes.

It's with that in mind, that I've come up with a few solutions.

Solution A: Pitfalls.
Pitfalls will work similarly to Death Spikes, except one fatal change: They only work once per wave.
From the moment you unlock a pitfall and place it on the map, it has a 100% chance to insta kill the first enemy that walks into it. After that, it's "full" until the next wave. I like this solution and it's the one I'm leaning more towards beacuse it gives traps an actual buff, early game, and rewards heavy spending (filling up the map with pitfalls would be an expensive, but viable option.), whilst not being TOO strong that every wave is faceroll, and not being so weak that traps feel underloved.

Solution B: Cooldown on deathspikes
This one's more, if people want Castle to stay Castle, then this is the better option. It basically means that Deathspikes can only kill, once every X seconds. This again, nerfs the heavily overpowered deathspikes without completely destroying their gameplay, but I feel like it would have to be a pretty hefty cooldown, 20+ seconds, to really impact. Again, I'm leaning more towards the pitfall idea, but I'd really appreciate feedback!

* - Archer/Hunter retuning
Currently archer sucks
It sucks balls. They do the exact same function that Hunter does, except hunter does it better. There's litterally only three enemies in the game which archer are better at killing then hunters, and hunters have numerous advantages. As such I feel like it might be a nice idea to just, overall retune the numbers on Hunters and pull them back slightly, whilst putting more mobs that are weaker to hunters (Harpys, Fellhounds and Minispiders spring to mind), and giving them a slight quality of life retuning. That is to say, a bit of damage here, a bit of a faster fire rate there. Obviously I don't have numbers set in stone yet (That's why I want feedback!) so I'd have to look at it in much greater depth, but it just feels like, Hunter > Archer in EVERY situation, until post wave 31.

* - Spider retuning
The spider is in that sticky situation where, if you know how to deal with it, it's way too damn easy, but if you don't know what to do on it, you get boned hard. I feel like this is bad design philosophy, it promotes stagnent gameplay and punishes trying new things.
A few ideas I've been throwing out involve changing where the spider jumps, whether or not he eats units, and more importantly, changing it so that it's not so damn fast! You blink and suddenly it's at point A, then point B.

* - Recurring boss waves
Currently, when you beat wave 31, the waves 1 through 30 recur, without the wizard again. I kind like this and I kinda don't. I feel as though, instead of the current system, there could be a new boss at wave 62, then another new boss at wave 93, and so on (I'm hearing buuuunchiiiiies)

* - Fellhound love
Fellhounds are so god damn crappy. It's a free wave no matter how you look at it, their resistances are only towards magic, and even then it's pathetic.
I don't think I need to convince many of you that they really need something done, probably just a huge health increase.

* - Time wizard changes
Currently the timewizard is in a similar situation to the spider, except not quite so bad because it at least gives you a hint of what you need to do. I like this system, and I really don't want to change it, but I was throwing around ideas when I came up with one that I really actually thought could be quite cool.
Currently it follows a strict pattern, you know, icers, LDs, firemages etc, with a tiny bit of randomisation thrown in. Well what if it gave you more time before it decided to destroy your units, but was otherwise completely random. Something like "Fools, don't burn my precious time!" (10 second wait where he doesn't move, giving you time to set up).
This gives first time wizard goers a better fighting chance, whilst still gives old players a bit of a twist, they have to be ready with their trigger fingers to beat it on insane!

* - New gametype, random!
I love this idea, it's almost certanily going to be implemented because it's really quick, easy and fun.

Especially when you hit Go for wave 1 and a mothertruckin' hydra shows up.



Phew.

Thanks for reading all that if you managed to hold out! I've been up for the past 48 hours straight working on this project, so I've had a lot of time to think about what to say and what needs to be done.

Please leave any interesting ideas, or feedback below, it really helps and motivates me to work more on this excellent game!
rip
what's wrong with the original castle? it's fun
In response to Neimo
As i recall in a chat we were having. He said it's the exact same castle. Just reprogrammed to be polished(no bugs etc) because when he made it, he was like 12.
In response to DragonDesend
Not only that but the original Castle never took advantage of the newer functions due to Abra going on what seems a permanent hiatus.

Re-working the game properly isn't a bad thing and wouldn't really hurt anything.

Also a note to Vrocaan, while he may be remaking an already existing game? He is actually doing itfor the right reasons. Not just to become some legendary setting of GM. So stop trying to start something you pathetic troll.
In response to Tag Youre Pregnant
Silly fool, Rushnut is my buddy. I'm simply playing around with him, dood.
I'll be keeping an eye on how you change things. Everything you proposed could turn out to be horrible in execution if not done right. Lets hope that isn't the case.
In response to Delax
Delax wrote:
I'll be keeping an eye on how you change things. Everything you proposed could turn out to be horrible in execution if not done right. Lets hope that isn't the case.

Well, I'm certainly hoping that such isn't the case, that's why I'm not just throwing things in without first coming for some proper feedback, and Delax you're exactly the kind of person that I'd love to get your opinion from.


Neimo wrote:
what's wrong with the original castle? it's fun

It's buggy as hell! The game itself, will be identical to the current Castle (Exact damage numbers, health numbers, enemy numbers, multipliers, the whole works) and will play identically, there will just be a lot of quality of life tweaks to make the entire thing run smoothly.

For all intensive purposes, it will be Castle, just polished to feel like a finished game, and not like a buggy mess that it currently is.

Vrocaan wrote:
rip

no cuz i havent added da gm codez yet
In response to Rushnut
Rushnut wrote:
Delax wrote:
I'll be keeping an eye on how you change things. Everything you proposed could turn out to be horrible in execution if not done right. Lets hope that isn't the case.

Well, I'm certainly hoping that such isn't the case, that's why I'm not just throwing things in without first coming for some proper feedback, and Delax you're exactly the kind of person that I'd love to get your opinion from.


Feedback is good, and yeah, there are numerous bugs and issues with the current coding that need to be fixed. Plenty of room for improvement in the game as well. Few people know as many of the bugs/causes of the bugs in the game as I do, so I can help give you an idea where to look for some of the ones few people know of.
In response to Delax
Well feel free to start! Many of the bugs simply won't exist in my version (Which is now open for player testing!) because the engine just isn't as wonky, but I'm sure you'll find some that'll slip past me.