The current state of Phantom Dart Towers

[Leonard✌d'Moogle]

So it's 26c, which we're still missing patch notes for, and I decided to give Phantom Dart towers a big place in my strategy... and they suck.

Not in the way I expected them to suck. They're small one square towers optimized to take out spectres and are only ok-ish at everything else. But even for their task of taking out spectres they're nearly useless. They do almost no damage even to spectres, unless you build them en-mass, and can't do that as early to early-mid game is when you're struggling to find enough building slots to do what you need?

As for solutions, well you could up their damage, though I suspect this is a bad idea. Another possible solution would be to either have them not take up building slots, or have them take only a third of a building slot. Either would help tremendously.

[Inigo [No Mouse]]

Well the fact that they're one space.. That'll help me a lot with the crappy layout of my village. Have you tried the ballista tower? That thing has enormous range, holy crap. I have 4 ballista towers right now and I haven't had a monster come to the village in like 3 days.

[Rayvolution]

InDev 26c actually didn't have anything worth mentioning. It was just a hotfix for some GUI alignment issues on the disclaimer in the main menu. Normally I wouldn't have made a dedicated patch just for that, but with the sale starting I thought it wise to make sure that disclaimer rendered correctly for the influx of new players. :)

As for the Phantom Darts, I agree, they probably need beefed up somehow. How though, I'm not sure. They can't be made too powerful, else they'll overshadow stronger building types (as a 3x3 "grid" of them would end up well overshadowing a single bow tower or something).

I also worry about doing "fractional" building slots, because that could cause a whole layer of confusion.

One solution might be to make them stronger, but more "expensive" so they consume a bit too much energy than they should, so you simply can't run 3 dozen of them in place of a normal defense, and eventually want to replace them with Elemental Bolts.

[Inigo [No Mouse]]

Will the sale remain $5 through the summer sale Ray?

[Rayvolution]

Originally posted by Sgt. MacArthur 1st RB:

Will the sale remain $5 through the summer sale Ray?

Valve's NDA won't let me confirm or deny that, or confirm or deny there even is a such thing as a "Summer Sale", or what dates this so-called "Summer Sale" is on.

But, I did a 50% discount last Summer sale. ;)

[Inigo [No Mouse]]

Okay lol, I googled it and it said summer sale will be June 18th. Anywho, keep up the good work! I know this is "early-access" but it certainly seems complete at this point.

[Leonard✌d'Moogle]

Ok, then have 3x3 buildings take 3 slots, 5x5 take up 4, and phantom towers take up 1, or something like that.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Leonard✌d'Moogle:

Ok, then have 3x3 buildings take 3 slots, 5x5 take up 4, and phantom towers take up 1, or something like that.

I think this could be a good idea...

It could work like this:

• Each upgrade to castle/ancillaries would give more building slots than now
• The normal buildings would however cost 2 building slots each
• Bigger buildings (e.g.: Lumber Mill or Crystal Harvestry) would cost 3
• Small buildings like Wells/Firepits/Phantom towers would only cost 1

What do you think? :-]

[Rayvolution]

Originally posted by Jost Amman:

Originally posted by Leonard✌d'Moogle:

Ok, then have 3x3 buildings take 3 slots, 5x5 take up 4, and phantom towers take up 1, or something like that.

I think this could be a good idea...

It could work like this:

• Each upgrade to castle/ancillaries would give more building slots than now
• The normal buildings would however cost 2 building slots each
• Bigger buildings (e.g.: Lumber Mill or Crystal Harvestry) would cost 3
• Small buildings like Wells/Firepits/Phantom towers would only cost 1

What do you think? :-]

If I went this route, I'd likely also have to rename building slots to something like "Civic slots". Because building slots insinuates a 1:1 sort of deal.

It's an interesting idea, and does solve many smaller problems, like people complaining a fire pit takes up an entire slot.

[Phelan]

I like the dart towers as is, they compliment the maze and regular towers perfectly until you can add full sized elemental bolt towers in the mix, I only made three on my current map in the beginning, shortly before the spectres started showing up and I've never had even the slightest problem, everything fails to breach the second half of the maze even, less with upgrades bwing done now.

[EldVarg]

I like the idea buildings taking up different anount of slots.

[Tochimo]

I know I don't have a lot of time in the game yet, but I've been avoiding using Shadow Dart towers as others have stated they're underwhelming.

Could something like a "bouncing" attack make them more effective? Kind of like what you'd often see in more traditional Tower Defense games - a low damage, bouncing attack which becomes weaker with each bounce?

[NF_Crenos]

Originally posted by Rayvolution:

InDev 26c actually didn't have anything worth mentioning. It was just a hotfix for some GUI alignment issues on the disclaimer in the main menu. Normally I wouldn't have made a dedicated patch just for that, but with the sale starting I thought it wise to make sure that disclaimer rendered correctly for the influx of new players. :)

As for the Phantom Darts, I agree, they probably need beefed up somehow. How though, I'm not sure. They can't be made too powerful, else they'll overshadow stronger building types (as a 3x3 "grid" of them would end up well overshadowing a single bow tower or something).

I also worry about doing "fractional" building slots, because that could cause a whole layer of confusion.

One solution might be to make them stronger, but more "expensive" so they consume a bit too much energy than they should, so you simply can't run 3 dozen of them in place of a normal defense, and eventually want to replace them with Elemental Bolts.

Could you make them "scale" their damage by how much space they take? Like let 9 of them taking a 3x3 spot do 75% of the damage a normal magic tower would do. So a single PD tower does, say 8-9% of the 3x3 tower. Just a suggestion. I don't use them much, I don't remember their current damage :D

[Hunt Daddy]

I see the dart towers as a supplement to my defenses. Sometimes scatteered inside the town since they can fit into any nook or open spot you might have. When they are upgraded they are respectable I think...but before that they at least distract the spectres from ghosting your villagers when they float into town, right? Also, note that you can upgrade them a couple of times before you even need refined resources.

[Hunt Daddy]

Hey there Rayvolution! Still enjoying your game =D
Anyway, I am wondering what is it that you intended for the phantom dart towers to be used for? Do they fill a particular niche in the tower defense scheme? Every upgraded tower is better than it. The magic tower is better than it. The static tower is arguably better at killing spectres too I think. Just wondering. I did recently read that mobs can walk over the phantom dark towers and so I thought about filling a maze full of them but I haven't gotten around to that and also that sounds like a LOT of building slots used up for this idea.

[Purple Farmer]

Honestly... I feel like the building slot system should probably disapear. The limited building slots forces allot of decisions. I always go for high capacity housing, never use the quality housing, small farms, phantom darts, doggo house... because the limiting factor is the number of buildings that can be built.

We are limited pretty much until map capture by the amount of resources/laborers it takes to build buildings...

At the very least... could you add it as an optional gamemode for custom? It would be nice to afford doggo houses and stuff.