Formation Defense 2.0 has arrived, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Note: The alpha gameplay and attacker videos were filmed in the game's alpha stages. Several things have changed since then, most notably in terms of balance.
List of Features:
Limitless ways to play. There are literally hundreds of potential strategies
Great variance in difficulty settings. The lower settings are relatively easy, but even I, the creator of the game, struggle on the hardest settings (Solo only)
30+ custom icons
Custom achievement system (51 achievements, 22 more coming in the next version)
Competitive mode, which brings 22 new units to the table, each with 8 specialization options (see video below)
Dynamic tip system, designed to guide users at a pace they feel comfortable with
9 unique factions, each equipped with a unique leader, leader power, defensive unit, building, and offensive unit
Helpful option settings at the start of the game to disable any features you DON'T want
Brief tutorial, explaining the basics of the game (only activated when selected)
Strategy-based gameplay combined with the traditional defense formula we all know and love
Complete building and unit tech trees, helpfully categorized, to help new players grasp the strategic purpose behind each fighter/structure
Supports 1-7 players
What Is Formation Defense?
A strategy game developed by Wingednosering, which, at its height, had 20,300 players daily. Although this peak was quite brief, it gave me hope that the game could become quite popular over the long term. I originally gave up on the project because I got little to no feedback from multiple modding communities and the Blizzard custom games forums.
Since then, I’ve done my own investigating, learned quite a bit about the editor and come back to refresh the game and give it a much-needed upgrade.
If you’d like to see what all the fuss is about, the open beta in available on battle.net (US servers). Please make sure you play the version created by Wingednosering (it was stolen a while back by a user named Spark and I haven’t gotten his version removed yet).
Why a New Thread?
Well, there was a thread for Formation Defense some time ago, but it continually fell into the inescapable maw of high page numbers. Many of the comments regarded the game first coming out, which was essentially a beta. There was not enough interest gained to give it a starting boost.
I felt the best course of action would be to present this upgrade as exactly what it is: a huge step up, in nearly every way, with a potentially new and more competitive fanbase. If anybody feels like the old Formation Defense thread should be closed, feel free to lock it.
What’s Changed?
What hasn’t changed? We’ve got new terrain to splash around in (brought into existence by the talented Milpheus), fantastic new dialogs, a refocus to visual cues, a well-integrated tip system which helps users tackle the steep learning curve one step at a time, new difficulty levels, increased performance, bug fixes, and balance changes.
The biggest new feature? A competitive mode, where two players clash heads by sending formations at one another in order to claim victory. In this mode, the tower side of things is entirely removed, for those of you who prefer units.
The best part is that all of this is fitted into one game. You vote for either Competitive Mode or Solo Mode at the start of the game and those who want solo, play solo, while the others lace into each other on a competitive battlefield. Obviously, you need at least two players to select ‘Competitive’ for the new mode to come into play.
Refocus to Visual Cues
This feature may have been confusing to some when it was mentioned above, but it’s actually quite simple.
Everything in the game that your eyes usually gloss over (end of round messages, unit tooltips, tutorial text, etc) has been removed and reintegrated using visual cues instead of text. Text is still present, but it’s more to-the-point and draws your eyes.
The reward dialog and new tip systems listed above play a central role in this. The reward dialog adds an addictive quality to the game, while breaking down end of round bonuses to provide additional information. These give contextual information, which doesn't bog down the user or slow down the game for more experienced players.
Improved Performance
The last version of Formation Defense did not perform badly per se, but it did contain quite a bit of inefficient code, which made use of outdated techniques, which have been made obsolete by Blizzard’s patches and/or my growing capability with the Galaxy Editor.
Much of Formation Defense’s code has been rewritten. Although most of this will be behind the scenes and affect users little, the performance of the game should see a slight improvement.
New Terrain
Competitive Mode
As mentioned above, Competitive Mode will completely do-away with the tower portion of the game. In its place, each player (only those who asked to be part of competitive mode) is given a second, offensive formation, with all new units and abilities.
When each wave begins, your offensive formation (referred to as OF from now on) rushes toward an enemy and attacks their defensive formation (DF). The OF units are brought back to life each round, so there’s no need to spend defenders on replenishing your army. That’s not to say that defenders are no longer needed. They’re still available, but the OF side of things uses them in its own way...
Which brings us to specializations. Specializations can be given to your OF troops to make them carry out your will on the battlefield.
The specializations are as follows (values subject to change for balancing purposes):
Assassin – Teleports behind your opponent’s DF and eliminates healers
Tank – Draws fire, deals 50% of its normal damage, but has double health. Cannot be hit for more than 50 damage
Commander – Increases the speed of all nearby units
Runner – Cannot attack. These units simply run to the end, hoping to take away your opponent’s defenders
Martyr - Increases the ranged defense of nearby units when it dies
Scout – Designed to help new players. They will report back what units they see in enemy territory and make suggestions as to what should be built next. Their recommendations are based on simplistic criteria though, and won’t beat an experienced player that knows what to watch for.
Formation Defense Attackers:
As you can see, this will require a little more control on the defenders’ part. Simply sitting and waiting for your opponents to die (like in most TDs) will often get you killed. Assassins, Berserkers, and Runners become high priority targets, but Tanks prevent your units from targeting them automatically.
Each OF unit can only have one specialization at a time. Granting a unit a specialization (or switching to another spec.) costs 2 defenders (vespene).
Competitive Mode features 12 new units (+9 unique, faction-specific units), and 7 specializations.
An open beta of the game is currently available on the US, SEA, and EU B-net servers, so get online and play! I would appreciate it greatly if anybody that plays reports back to me on any issues they had and/or leave feedback.
I find it rather hard to read a wall of text and look at some rather boring screenshots and give out feedback.
Thereby providing myself for future beta testing, I am a EU player though.
You can find me, and many others, on our lovely mIRC channel of-course !
I will likely be making a video at some point, though my video editing skills are virtually nonexistent.
The private beta will be hosted on the NA servers. I forgot to put that in there. (Editing now)
I appreciate your feedback on the 'wall of text', as you put it. When somebody spends months creating a proper, polished game, I think it's fair that the beta testers be willing to spend ten minutes to read a draft of the intended changes.
The screenshots may be 'boring' but they're showing off the new terrain, which was one of the biggest flaws in the original game (and most commented on).
As for feedback, I'm looking for suggestions, or feedback regarding these changes and whether or not previous formation defense players will be looking forward to them. The game was briefly on the top page popularity-wise, so I figure many will have played it.
Well, that was my feedback. I found the Terrain rather boring, but then again. I have no clue how the map is supposed to be played. If it's the point to maze towers along the line's the terrain should stay as it is ofcourse !
But yeah, as you stated above, make a small video showing 2minutes ingame with everything going on. I'm sure it will look allot more fun then our current naked screenshots can show us :)
Don't take me wrong though, but in times of these a video is sort of a must to get attention from new people. Doesn't matter how bad it is, even if you upload it raw its still very informative especially on a TD wich is 95% about the Towers and Units in action.
IF The map is what I'm sort of thinking from reading, it should be great :)
It's a strategy game mixed with a defense map. You have twenty-eight units in a formation, which can be reformed into four lines, a wedge, or a box, which then fight off waves of increasingly difficult enemies. Each wave of enemies also brings refugees, which will attempt to reach the end of the 'lane' before they're killed by the enemies. Rescuing them grants you defenders (vespene), which act as both your lives and a resource to replace fallen troops.
In solo mode, there is also a tower side to the game, but in competitive, it's purely formation vs formation.
I have a friend that I've been testing the alpha with (only real way to test competitive...grrr). I'll try making a video of in-game footage tonight when we meet up.
[Edit]: Testing is going well tonight, I'll be making a video out of the replays soon.
Thanks. The competitive mode is actually much simpler than the solo mode (thank god for that), since it no longer has a tower portion (don't know if you played the old Formation Defense...if you didn't you probably have no idea what I'm talking about). Solo mode is insanely hard, even for me and I know the strengths and weaknesses of every unit/structure. There are easier difficulties, but even on those it's not as easy as you'd think.
Competitive is much more streamlined. Nothing's really hidden. Hopefully any new player will be abe to go in and have some fun, but only those who truly stick with it will master the game completely (and then try testing themselves against other good players or on solo mode). I'm also constantly introducing more features to make the game more noob-friendly. The scout, runner, and tip interface are good examples.
The offensive units have been balanced to the nth degree too. Obviously some units are better than others for certain tasks, but in a general way, there is no superior unit to rush to, or incorrect path to take to victory. It's all about analyzing your opponents' weaknesses and playing upon them (hence the scout).
The game is officially in the beta stage. Is anybody interested in an NA private beta? If I don't get enough responses, I'll make it an open beta instead.
Hey! I checked out the video, and I'm really digging this map. I'd love to help beta test it! Only issue is that I'm getting married on the 18th, and I'll be in the middle of moving to our new place within 2 weeks XD So, I probably won't be able to be of much help in the near future :S Even so, I'm really looking forward to the release!
Awesome. I only need a couple of tests to ensure nothing unusual pops up for a larger group of people (like one guy getting everybody's spawns or something). I figure if any issues arise, they'll be apparent very quickly.
The closed beta test should be very brief (like I said, just looking for big issues like that in larger groups).
I'll be happy to have you help :). Once we get a few more volunteers, I'll send you a pm. Is there another way you'd rather I contact you?
Response has been fairly minimal unfortunately. The game has been posted as an open beta, so go ahead and give it a try on the US servers! Since the popularity is pretty low right now, it's a good idea to bring a friend if you intend to try competitive (recommended...competitive is much more accessible to new players than solo is).
For those that contacted me regarding a private beta, I'd ask you to play on your own (bring friends), boost the popularity to get it noticed, and report any bugs or feedback to me through private messages, email, or a reply to this thread.
Thanks WNR for allowing me to help with the pre-test of the beta, its been alot of fun. This is a Fantastic Game !! It takes some time to learn, but it's more than challenging for all the Boss type players. There are also more than enough options for any player of any skill level.
In both modes I think the balancing has been achieved quite well. It's a very challenging game in Solo, and even more challenging in Co-Op.
Yes, I'm sure anyone who eats, sleeps and drinks SC2 will find minor issues, but that will only be outclassed by WNR's ability to isolate issues and resolve them.
From the opening concept up to the Beta release point, well done. It's been alot of fun seeing this play out from it's original concept.
Thanks for the response McGunnz. I'm sure anybody who watched the video will recognize him as my alpha tester.
A new promotional video has been put up. It's my first trailer and was actually my first time trying to use sony vegas pro 10, so be kind in your responses ;).
The game might seem a little overwhelming at first but once you take the time to learn it becomes even funner. Definitely challenging! GJ on finishing it up it looks like you put alot into this.
Ahh, you found the thread Milpheus :). Nice screenshots. Thanks again for your assistance! You'll note that I've credited you in the loading screen.
I'm still working away on things...I've already made some alterations to the achievement layout and building upgrade dialog.
I've also created a total of 12 custom icons so far (and still doing more as we speak). Hopefully this will help it appear more polished.
All I need now are some players :(.
[Edit]: I've posted the icons, I would appreciate it if nobody stole them, even though they're mostly just recolours (two are straight from achievements too). I must admit though...anybody with the know-how to take them, crop them, and convert them to .dds in proper icon form, can probably just make their own.
Yeah, although Competitive mode, the new tip system, and the recreated tutorial (among other things) have all been put in place to help users tackle the learning curve faster. Like nearly any game, I think by the second or third game, you should have a good grasp of what you're doing. This time around, I even made the lowest difficulty 25% easier and the middle two difficulties 10% easier (four difficulty settings total).
I did wonder about the difficulty though...I've been trying to aim for 'easy to learn, difficult to master', but that's definitely a difficult target to hit.
Thanks for taking the time to jump over to this thread and check it out.
New video! Formation Defense Promo:
Formation Defense 2.0 has arrived, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Note: The alpha gameplay and attacker videos were filmed in the game's alpha stages. Several things have changed since then, most notably in terms of balance.
List of Features:
What Is Formation Defense?
A strategy game developed by Wingednosering, which, at its height, had 20,300 players daily. Although this peak was quite brief, it gave me hope that the game could become quite popular over the long term. I originally gave up on the project because I got little to no feedback from multiple modding communities and the Blizzard custom games forums.
Since then, I’ve done my own investigating, learned quite a bit about the editor and come back to refresh the game and give it a much-needed upgrade.
If you’d like to see what all the fuss is about, the open beta in available on battle.net (US servers). Please make sure you play the version created by Wingednosering (it was stolen a while back by a user named Spark and I haven’t gotten his version removed yet).
Why a New Thread?
Well, there was a thread for Formation Defense some time ago, but it continually fell into the inescapable maw of high page numbers. Many of the comments regarded the game first coming out, which was essentially a beta. There was not enough interest gained to give it a starting boost. I felt the best course of action would be to present this upgrade as exactly what it is: a huge step up, in nearly every way, with a potentially new and more competitive fanbase. If anybody feels like the old Formation Defense thread should be closed, feel free to lock it.
What’s Changed?
What hasn’t changed? We’ve got new terrain to splash around in (brought into existence by the talented Milpheus), fantastic new dialogs, a refocus to visual cues, a well-integrated tip system which helps users tackle the steep learning curve one step at a time, new difficulty levels, increased performance, bug fixes, and balance changes.
The biggest new feature? A competitive mode, where two players clash heads by sending formations at one another in order to claim victory. In this mode, the tower side of things is entirely removed, for those of you who prefer units.
The best part is that all of this is fitted into one game. You vote for either Competitive Mode or Solo Mode at the start of the game and those who want solo, play solo, while the others lace into each other on a competitive battlefield. Obviously, you need at least two players to select ‘Competitive’ for the new mode to come into play.
Refocus to Visual Cues
This feature may have been confusing to some when it was mentioned above, but it’s actually quite simple. Everything in the game that your eyes usually gloss over (end of round messages, unit tooltips, tutorial text, etc) has been removed and reintegrated using visual cues instead of text. Text is still present, but it’s more to-the-point and draws your eyes.
The reward dialog and new tip systems listed above play a central role in this. The reward dialog adds an addictive quality to the game, while breaking down end of round bonuses to provide additional information. These give contextual information, which doesn't bog down the user or slow down the game for more experienced players.
Improved Performance
The last version of Formation Defense did not perform badly per se, but it did contain quite a bit of inefficient code, which made use of outdated techniques, which have been made obsolete by Blizzard’s patches and/or my growing capability with the Galaxy Editor.
Much of Formation Defense’s code has been rewritten. Although most of this will be behind the scenes and affect users little, the performance of the game should see a slight improvement.
New Terrain
Competitive Mode
As mentioned above, Competitive Mode will completely do-away with the tower portion of the game. In its place, each player (only those who asked to be part of competitive mode) is given a second, offensive formation, with all new units and abilities.
When each wave begins, your offensive formation (referred to as OF from now on) rushes toward an enemy and attacks their defensive formation (DF). The OF units are brought back to life each round, so there’s no need to spend defenders on replenishing your army. That’s not to say that defenders are no longer needed. They’re still available, but the OF side of things uses them in its own way...
Which brings us to specializations. Specializations can be given to your OF troops to make them carry out your will on the battlefield.
The specializations are as follows (values subject to change for balancing purposes):
Formation Defense Attackers:
As you can see, this will require a little more control on the defenders’ part. Simply sitting and waiting for your opponents to die (like in most TDs) will often get you killed. Assassins, Berserkers, and Runners become high priority targets, but Tanks prevent your units from targeting them automatically. Each OF unit can only have one specialization at a time. Granting a unit a specialization (or switching to another spec.) costs 2 defenders (vespene).
Competitive Mode features 12 new units (+9 unique, faction-specific units), and 7 specializations.
An open beta of the game is currently available on the US, SEA, and EU B-net servers, so get online and play! I would appreciate it greatly if anybody that plays reports back to me on any issues they had and/or leave feedback.
Early Alpha Gameplay Footage:
Hello there.
I find it rather hard to read a wall of text and look at some rather boring screenshots and give out feedback. Thereby providing myself for future beta testing, I am a EU player though. You can find me, and many others, on our lovely mIRC channel of-course !
I will likely be making a video at some point, though my video editing skills are virtually nonexistent.
The private beta will be hosted on the NA servers. I forgot to put that in there. (Editing now)
I appreciate your feedback on the 'wall of text', as you put it. When somebody spends months creating a proper, polished game, I think it's fair that the beta testers be willing to spend ten minutes to read a draft of the intended changes.
The screenshots may be 'boring' but they're showing off the new terrain, which was one of the biggest flaws in the original game (and most commented on).
As for feedback, I'm looking for suggestions, or feedback regarding these changes and whether or not previous formation defense players will be looking forward to them. The game was briefly on the top page popularity-wise, so I figure many will have played it.
@wingednosering: Go
Well, that was my feedback. I found the Terrain rather boring, but then again. I have no clue how the map is supposed to be played. If it's the point to maze towers along the line's the terrain should stay as it is ofcourse !
But yeah, as you stated above, make a small video showing 2minutes ingame with everything going on. I'm sure it will look allot more fun then our current naked screenshots can show us :)
Don't take me wrong though, but in times of these a video is sort of a must to get attention from new people. Doesn't matter how bad it is, even if you upload it raw its still very informative especially on a TD wich is 95% about the Towers and Units in action.
IF The map is what I'm sort of thinking from reading, it should be great :)
It's a strategy game mixed with a defense map. You have twenty-eight units in a formation, which can be reformed into four lines, a wedge, or a box, which then fight off waves of increasingly difficult enemies. Each wave of enemies also brings refugees, which will attempt to reach the end of the 'lane' before they're killed by the enemies. Rescuing them grants you defenders (vespene), which act as both your lives and a resource to replace fallen troops.
In solo mode, there is also a tower side to the game, but in competitive, it's purely formation vs formation.
I have a friend that I've been testing the alpha with (only real way to test competitive...grrr). I'll try making a video of in-game footage tonight when we meet up.
[Edit]: Testing is going well tonight, I'll be making a video out of the replays soon.
Some technical difficulties have prevented me from recording the video (DivX killed Fraps??!?!?!). I'll get a video up tomorrow.
Video's up.
Looks really nice. The concept with the upgradable attack squad is brilliant! New players will probably be overwhelmed by the hundreds of options...
@Obatztrara: Go
Thanks. The competitive mode is actually much simpler than the solo mode (thank god for that), since it no longer has a tower portion (don't know if you played the old Formation Defense...if you didn't you probably have no idea what I'm talking about). Solo mode is insanely hard, even for me and I know the strengths and weaknesses of every unit/structure. There are easier difficulties, but even on those it's not as easy as you'd think.
Competitive is much more streamlined. Nothing's really hidden. Hopefully any new player will be abe to go in and have some fun, but only those who truly stick with it will master the game completely (and then try testing themselves against other good players or on solo mode). I'm also constantly introducing more features to make the game more noob-friendly. The scout, runner, and tip interface are good examples.
The offensive units have been balanced to the nth degree too. Obviously some units are better than others for certain tasks, but in a general way, there is no superior unit to rush to, or incorrect path to take to victory. It's all about analyzing your opponents' weaknesses and playing upon them (hence the scout).
A second video has been put up. The martyr specialization has been revealed and offensive unique units for each faction are in progress.
I also reformatted the thread somewhat.
The game is officially in the beta stage. Is anybody interested in an NA private beta? If I don't get enough responses, I'll make it an open beta instead.
Hey! I checked out the video, and I'm really digging this map. I'd love to help beta test it! Only issue is that I'm getting married on the 18th, and I'll be in the middle of moving to our new place within 2 weeks XD So, I probably won't be able to be of much help in the near future :S Even so, I'm really looking forward to the release!
Awesome. I only need a couple of tests to ensure nothing unusual pops up for a larger group of people (like one guy getting everybody's spawns or something). I figure if any issues arise, they'll be apparent very quickly.
The closed beta test should be very brief (like I said, just looking for big issues like that in larger groups).
I'll be happy to have you help :). Once we get a few more volunteers, I'll send you a pm. Is there another way you'd rather I contact you?
Response has been fairly minimal unfortunately. The game has been posted as an open beta, so go ahead and give it a try on the US servers! Since the popularity is pretty low right now, it's a good idea to bring a friend if you intend to try competitive (recommended...competitive is much more accessible to new players than solo is).
For those that contacted me regarding a private beta, I'd ask you to play on your own (bring friends), boost the popularity to get it noticed, and report any bugs or feedback to me through private messages, email, or a reply to this thread.
Thank you ahead of time for any time you spend.
Thanks WNR for allowing me to help with the pre-test of the beta, its been alot of fun. This is a Fantastic Game !! It takes some time to learn, but it's more than challenging for all the Boss type players. There are also more than enough options for any player of any skill level. In both modes I think the balancing has been achieved quite well. It's a very challenging game in Solo, and even more challenging in Co-Op. Yes, I'm sure anyone who eats, sleeps and drinks SC2 will find minor issues, but that will only be outclassed by WNR's ability to isolate issues and resolve them. From the opening concept up to the Beta release point, well done. It's been alot of fun seeing this play out from it's original concept.
Amazing work.
Gunnz
Thanks for the response McGunnz. I'm sure anybody who watched the video will recognize him as my alpha tester.
A new promotional video has been put up. It's my first trailer and was actually my first time trying to use sony vegas pro 10, so be kind in your responses ;).
You should use my pictures:)
The game might seem a little overwhelming at first but once you take the time to learn it becomes even funner. Definitely challenging! GJ on finishing it up it looks like you put alot into this.
Ahh, you found the thread Milpheus :). Nice screenshots. Thanks again for your assistance! You'll note that I've credited you in the loading screen.
I'm still working away on things...I've already made some alterations to the achievement layout and building upgrade dialog.
I've also created a total of 12 custom icons so far (and still doing more as we speak). Hopefully this will help it appear more polished.
All I need now are some players :(.
[Edit]: I've posted the icons, I would appreciate it if nobody stole them, even though they're mostly just recolours (two are straight from achievements too). I must admit though...anybody with the know-how to take them, crop them, and convert them to .dds in proper icon form, can probably just make their own.
This may be part of the answer you're seeking in the other thread about popularity. In other words, steep learning curve != popular.
Yeah, although Competitive mode, the new tip system, and the recreated tutorial (among other things) have all been put in place to help users tackle the learning curve faster. Like nearly any game, I think by the second or third game, you should have a good grasp of what you're doing. This time around, I even made the lowest difficulty 25% easier and the middle two difficulties 10% easier (four difficulty settings total).
I did wonder about the difficulty though...I've been trying to aim for 'easy to learn, difficult to master', but that's definitely a difficult target to hit.
Thanks for taking the time to jump over to this thread and check it out.
Added a list of features to the top.