I am faced with a challenge in balancing my TD. In SC2, the armor works by reducing each attack by a static amount of damage. In my opinion this is worse for a TD game because you can't easily control the effect of a units armor against any given weapon.
First, this penalizes fast attacking towers more than slow towers. A unit has 4 armor, so a tower that attacks for 5 damage every 5 seconds has done 2 damage in 10 seconds. A tower that attacks for 10 damage every 10 seconds has done 6 damage in 10 seconds.
Second, I would need to manually specify the damage reduction amount from armor for each level of each tower. This would be a nightmare when I need to make slight balancing tweaks to tower damage.
What is really needed here is a percentage-based damage reduction for armor, but I don't see that available. How are other people overcoming this challenge in the up-and-coming TD games? Any suggestions?
If you want percentage based damage reduction, you're probably going to have to make it all triggered. Take away any vanilla armor bonuses any unit might be getting and make some code to take into account the amount of armor a tower has and the damage type of the attacking unit, you might have to use custom values or variables to signify different types of armor and weapons, and when a unit is attacked, compare the custom values/variables to determine what advantage there is if any, and then use a math equation to determine the appropriate damage migitation or increase.
Don't use armor numbers. Just give each round different attributes (armored, biological, massive, etc). Comparing to warcraft three, massive could be fortified, armored could be normal, biological could be unarmored, and light could be light.
If you're going to make mobs delete a certain percentage of the damage, just give them that much more HP.
In the damage effect of your tower's weapon, edit the Combat - Armor Reduction value. You can make 1 point of armor equal to whatever you want it to be against any given weapon.
Also, I'll have to agree with Vexal, just give them more health instead. :D
In my TD, each tower has Armor Reduction set to roughly 10% of the tower's maximum damage (I use damage ranges.) So a photon cannon which hits for 1-20 damage has the armor reduction set to 2, while a spine crawler that does 30-50 has it set to 5.
This has the rough effect of making each point of armor worth 10-15% reduction in damage. I do like using armor instead of just making things have more health because I have certain towers which ignore armor (or can be upgraded to ignore armor), making them much more valuable against heavily armored targets.
I am faced with a challenge in balancing my TD. In SC2, the armor works by reducing each attack by a static amount of damage. In my opinion this is worse for a TD game because you can't easily control the effect of a units armor against any given weapon.
First, this penalizes fast attacking towers more than slow towers. A unit has 4 armor, so a tower that attacks for 5 damage every 5 seconds has done 2 damage in 10 seconds. A tower that attacks for 10 damage every 10 seconds has done 6 damage in 10 seconds.
Second, I would need to manually specify the damage reduction amount from armor for each level of each tower. This would be a nightmare when I need to make slight balancing tweaks to tower damage.
What is really needed here is a percentage-based damage reduction for armor, but I don't see that available. How are other people overcoming this challenge in the up-and-coming TD games? Any suggestions?
If you want percentage based damage reduction, you're probably going to have to make it all triggered. Take away any vanilla armor bonuses any unit might be getting and make some code to take into account the amount of armor a tower has and the damage type of the attacking unit, you might have to use custom values or variables to signify different types of armor and weapons, and when a unit is attacked, compare the custom values/variables to determine what advantage there is if any, and then use a math equation to determine the appropriate damage migitation or increase.
@wonderbooze: Go
Don't use armor numbers. Just give each round different attributes (armored, biological, massive, etc). Comparing to warcraft three, massive could be fortified, armored could be normal, biological could be unarmored, and light could be light.
If you're going to make mobs delete a certain percentage of the damage, just give them that much more HP.
@ArchaicTruth: Go
In the damage effect of your tower's weapon, edit the Combat - Armor Reduction value. You can make 1 point of armor equal to whatever you want it to be against any given weapon.
Also, I'll have to agree with Vexal, just give them more health instead. :D
In my TD, each tower has Armor Reduction set to roughly 10% of the tower's maximum damage (I use damage ranges.) So a photon cannon which hits for 1-20 damage has the armor reduction set to 2, while a spine crawler that does 30-50 has it set to 5.
This has the rough effect of making each point of armor worth 10-15% reduction in damage. I do like using armor instead of just making things have more health because I have certain towers which ignore armor (or can be upgraded to ignore armor), making them much more valuable against heavily armored targets.