The Uniqueness In Each Titan

[Lynx]

Alright,
I want to discuss the uniqueness of Titans in 4.0.0 and compare it to 3.0.9d (previous active version of Island Defense).

My first point is the change from 3.0.9d to 4.0.0 that made each skill to have a category, Heal, Nuke, Escape, Scout, Unique, and Ultimate. This change has limited the variance of each Titan since they are tied to this system to have one of each category. Considering the possible choices you can choose from of these categories limits the variance even further, for example let me list the different types of nuke and heal. Nuke: Bounce, Fork, AoE around target, AoE around caster. Heal: Bounce, AoE around target, Self heal. If all of the of the 14(7 Main 7 Minion) types of Titan share these 4 types of nuke and 3 types of heal, the game gets to generic and lacks variance.

Compare this system to the 3.0.9d system, which was generally the same, but the main difference is that it wasn't bound by the system (Look at the stats when you pick titan, they have categorized spells as heals, nukes etc. but the spells are not at all influenced by the system when you later pick a titan). The 3.0.9d system is built for not restricting the developer when creating titans, which in consequence improves the variance and unique points of each different Titan. For example, Breezerious and Bubonicus are two great examples when looking at what skills they have, those two Titans don't give a fuck about the category system and have an all out varied and enjoying set of skills, which in turn creates a lot of different skill builds to choose between.

To further explain my argument that 4.0.0 Titans are not unique let me compare 4.0.0 Moltenious and 4.0.0 Lucidious.

Molt Nuke: Bounce nuke
Luci Nuke: Bounce nuke

Molt Heal: Large bounce heal
Luci Heal: Bounce heal

Molt Scout: Bird
Luci Scout: Pearl

Molt Escape: 1 minute invisibility 3 minute cooldown
Luci Escape: 1 minute invisibility 3 minute cooldown

Molt Unique: 15DPS immolation
Luci Unique: 20% chance to crit 150% to buildings

Molt Ultimate: Magmide
Luci Ultimate: Basically immolation

Molt Skill Build: Nuke, Escape, Nuke, Heal, Heal, Unique, Heal, Heal, Ultimate
Luci Skill Build: Nuke, Escape, Nuke, Heal, Heal, Unique, Heal, Heal, Ultimate

Molt Core Items: Titanic wards, Super regenerative armor spines, Life essence
Luci Core Items: Titanic wards, Super regenerative armor spines, Life essence

Molt Minion: Copy of Luci Minion
Luci Minion: Copy of Molt Minion

The difference between them is barely noticeable. The skill and item build are also usually the same for both of them. This is negative beacause the only builder that really changes the Titans item build is faerie, and considering the amount of builders there is, there should be more builders influencing the item choices of the Titan, but that's another topic. All of this further limits the difference and variance between each game of Island Defense.

Let's keep the discussion clean and on-topic in this thread, meaning that discussion should be about uniqueness in ID. Suggestions might be okay too, but if it's on a single Titan it might be better to post a new topic. I will ask FMs to separate posts that are flailing outside of the topic area, since that is what usually happens in our threads, and because I consider this to be a serious issue I want it to be dealt with.

[Burn]

True. Which is why I love breezerious so much. If 3.0.9d had AoE healing rain heals, it'd be an incredible titan which should be in 4.0.0. At the moment, Breeze can't siege for shit, but can prevent re-wall.

On the other hand, titans need to have different unique ways to achieve every aspect required of the titan, which editors don't seem to understand.

Every titan needs to be able to have a good way of getting minions and preventing gold when in fog. Fossurious and Demonicus lack this, that's why they lose in most decent in-houses. Others have windwalk, which generally prevents builders from over-golding. The new Demonicus' WW is a start, but still needs more. Maybe a skill that burrows or windwalks the gold mound.

Every titan needs to be able to prevent re-wall. Many titans can't do this efficiently, like granit, foss, voltron & glacious. Reducing cast times and travel times will help with this.

Every titan needs to be able to have chain heal, or AoE heal. Titans missing this are Foss (until caccoon), Glacious, Breeze, Foss, etc. 4.0.0 is good in the sense that every titan has chain heal minions, but there is a problem because every main titan has now an AoE heal on the main titan, which is OP, because that's one of the main reasons why Sypherious is great in 3.0.9d and make him awesome.

Every main titan needs to have a good nuke to get worker feed. Foss/granit/Glacious is notoriously bad at this in 3.0.9d, Glac is improved a lot in 4.0.0.

Every main titan needs to have a scouting ability, which is the most unique but unfortunately totally unbalanced in Island Defense ATM. Scout bird and water minions are far too OP for scouting.

Every titan needs to have a way of farming off mid walls for the camping strategy. Breeze has his Acid rain + OP cyclone nuke & windstorm which prevents golders, Molt has immolation in 3.0.9d but not in 4.0.0, Syph has watery minions in 3.0.9d but not in 4.0.0, Bubonicus has WW crit and stun nuke & plague which prevents golders & Glac has a nice nuke which slows in 3.0.9d (sucks for minions in 4.0.0).

Uniqueness is warm and fuzzy, we need more uniqueness between the titans to make the game more interesting, but we also have to think about balance. We need to have both.

-Burn

[Lynx]

change.png (32.02 KiB) Viewed 1699 times

This continues to prove my point, such self-contradiction...

[Neco]

A technical requirement for Pseudologos is that all abilities have the same level requirement.

Anyway, I agree with Burn on this one. Uniqueness can still be achieved even while having abilities having categories that they fit into. It helps balance the game from a level perspective as you can assist Titans with mid-game and late-game play by assuming the level that they'll be at the time.

[Lynx]

I think the concept of Pseudologos is not that great, I think a set of titan skills should work in unison together and not be general to be efficient in a circus mix of them. I like the idea of a Titan you'd get from randoming only (I think I had a dream of it some years ago even lol), but it should be something else. What? I don't know. In my dream it was a individual titan, but idk, we should create a topic to brainstorm ideas.

edit, the random factor could be something cool but unaffectable like a model change or whatever idk. as i said we should create a brainstorm pseudologos concept topic.

[Neco]

That's the idea of Pseudologos though. He's a mix-mash of abilities that may or may not work well together. He's a chance, a gamble.

[NotYacapo]

Does the new titan only get Molt nuke and Luci heal or is it different everytime

[Neco]

It's different every time. All the abilities are randomable apart from Bubonicus'.