the Troop Command Center [new in 8.42]

[DerSatan]

hello guys, i wanted to start a topic about this new Troop Command Center.

For those who dont know what it is, start a single player game with BT 8.42, use "greedisgood" and look what item is new at the trade master .

i just wanted to post my first thoughts about it.
feel free to post yours or comment mine, but whatever you do, please try out the new troop command center yourself before to make sure you know what youre posting about. :wink:

what i like

-the special creeps and their functions. most of them are useful, but no creep seems to be imba. (only experience will show that)
-the dependency of control points you control. more CP's means better mana regeneration means more special creeps.
-the possibility to upgrade sending additional aura creeps every X waves automatically.
-the creeps are under the force's control. that makes abusing hard.
-the parachute animation
-you can plant it in your base, but to use it, you must be near of it. thats a nice combo, you can decide between better effectiveness with some risk or save playing it, with worse accessability.


what i dislike

-only the trader can get it. thats sad, cause ~95% of all games are without the trader. you should make it purchasable normally as well. you can add high weapon upgrade requirements, or make it just expensive, so the trader remains an advantage, but please not only for traders.

-the models/icons. until now, the creeps of the force were more sci-fi-like than fantasy. the new special creeps are very fantasy styled, and i dont particularly like that mix (for the force units). i would like to have the special creeps the marine/commander model, with an aura (maybe) and attached effects like floating symbols over their heads (some red cross or bright light for healer etc.). a little bit like heros in wc3 which carry an orb. just a cool attached effect and the aura if they have one. not these troll medicine mans or elven archers :?

-everyone of your team can use it. thats not too bad, but i rather liked that you can decide wether the others can use it or not. most games are public, and there are guys in public games sometimes... well... you know what i mean.
theres an icon space free in the troop command center, maybe it could toggle shared control...?





yeah thats it, so long.
overall very nice idea and good implementing.

[Exodus]

Like written in the Announcement, this may be purchasable for everyone in the future but right now I feel like this item can be very powerful and if not well balanced (which is a quite difficult thing to do with so much new factors of the Center) it can ruin games for some people and thus lead to the popular opinion: remove it.

So I restricted the accessability for now and see how it works. Also, with No Trader Mode you can kind of disable this item, in case it should be too strong or in some other way abusable.

To the cosmetics, it was kinda hard to find something fitting, but Magic has always been a part of BT, so the new creeps are not a complete different thing, just adding something more to the fantasy part.

If the control sharing should be configurable I can add such a feature.

[TKF]

Command center is a good addition to BT, but with those creeps it's a bit weird.

I kinda imagined that the command center could trigger tech upgrade manually with mana cost feature, but not that many variations of creeps!


But the aura creeps are quite strong with their auras. Especially when you use the expensive 3000 gold upgrade, this gives your team a great advantage when you can spawn creeps occasionally. The command center can also add a small army assistance as well, thus it match about 50% of a player owned factory productivity if your team owns all CP's, but you can choose your type of creep. But the best pert with it is you are allowed available upgrade with additional aura creep spawning.

I agree that the fantasy part is a bit weird. Archers shooting acid from their bows? Well while having a lot of weird creeps, perhaps make creeps with radar?

[DerSatan]

i dont like the archers anyway. they look weird, are more expensive than other creeps just to slow their targets. against tanks, that would be quite strong, but the force controls them, and i think they also have attack priority to normal creeps and towers (where the acid has no effect).

these aura creeps arent too strong in my opinion, they do great support when many creeps are around, but they wont show up that often. (in contrast to factories, which can grant you additional 45 creeps per minute).

if something is overpowered, its the factories. maybe they should only spawn like 4 simple marines or something like that (maybe combined with reducing factories cost to 3000).

i can imagine that this would bring a better overall balance (assuming that the troop command center is availaible to everyone).

[horselance]

Worst thing is it has shared use, it is good thing overall but it is not like a factory; a factory can make you earn money but this CC dont make any money... And you cant even have the contol but you give money for it... For now trader can take it so it dont cost any money (instead its traded good costs). But when it will cost money in later versions, some1 gotta sacrifice money for it (I think it is 4k).

Second thing is only 1 can be built. It can be up to 3 i think... (for each lane)

Third thing is 3 upgrade can be purchased, it can be purchased 4 times and waves can be 7-5-3-1 and each upgrade costing 2k instead of 3k. Because you give 9k for total upgrades and what you get is: 3 aura creep every minute... Must be a kinda joke... I dont know if you remeber how fast creeps die... 3 aura creep per minute is NOTHING.

And while playing with trader i learned that trader can use Mines and Orbital Control. Next time I'll be a miner-trader

Except this issues, CC is a good idea...


Edit:

We must see it in game of course first. Then we can see how balanced or imba it is..

[DerSatan]

a factory can make you earn money but this CC dont make any money...

yeah, thats true. not only that you dont earn money from it, you really lose money, as every kill the force does gives less money overall than kills players do.

some other economical questions and thoughts:

how much bounty does the spawned troop command give? is it like the force's troops, or like the factory spawned ones? and how much bounty do the special creeps give? couldnt check that so far, i didnt play against them.

these bounties also lead to a money disadvantage, like the issue the kills these creeps do make you lose money.



another thing: the upgrade that automatically spawns units every X waves.


the first upgrade cost 3k gold and brings 3 creeps every 140 seconds.

the second upgrade cost 3k gold and brings 3 creeps every 100 seconds.
(compared to 1st upgrade level: 28,6 % more creeps, 200% cost)

the third upgrade cost 3k gold and brings 3 creeps every 60 seconds.
(compared to the 2nd upgrade level: 40% more creeps, 150% cost.
compared to 1st upgrade level: 57,1% more creeps, 300% cost)


quite hard to explain what i wanted to show, but in fact the third upgrade is just better compared to the second. that means: with current balancing, never do the second upgrade if you cant immediately do the third.

the first one is hard to tell in numbers, but i think its still better than the third. however, they shouldnt all have the same cost or effect alteration; i cant suggest concrete numbers now, just too late )

[horselance]

Does new special creeps do extra damage vs tanks? Because it writes Magic Attacks do extra damage vs. Heavy Armor. It is default text anyway. Their damage is pretty good and attack speed is insane... And if extra damage vs tanks they can be dangerous things:) There wasnt a magic type attacking creep yet.

[Tank-]

trader only BAD IDEA make it open to everyone! you said its for trader only because its too strong.....if you have a trader your already being pooled.... kinda sounds backwords to me