Kingdom Rush 4 mechanics

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Kingdom Rush 4 mechanics

by WhiteRider12 » Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:13 pm

I am looking forward to play Kingdom Rush 4 and maybe as many of you I too want some changes or improvements in the battle mechanics.

There are some things that I would like to see changed in Kingdom Rush 4.

1. The way towers choose targets.
At the moment the closest to the exit enemy is hit. This means that a mage tower will prefer to shoot at a spider that is 2 pixels closer to the exit than on a Champion. There is an archer tower in range. Spiders as we all know have high magic resistance and no armor (they will take full damage from arrows).

In another game (Tower Defense King) all towers are smart. All towers in range focus on enemies that will take most damage from them. Mage Towers shoot at enemies with no magic resistance and Archers shoot at enemies with no armor. Further more towers focus on the strongest enemy IF you have build other towers closer to the exit that will take care of the escaping enemies. Cannon towers shoot at swarmed enemies not on single enemies that have escaped from the swarm IF there are other towers further on the path OR single target towers in range (such as arrow or magic tower). The single target towers take care of the escaped enemy while cannons shoot at the swarm.

The same goes for flyers - in Tower Defense King, Realm Defense and other games - archer towers always prefer flyers over walking enemies.

2. In all Kingdom Rush games powerful skills as Instant Kill, Polymorph, Huntes Mark or Druids Curse again target the closest to the exit enemy. As a rule the weakest enemies are the fastes ones, strongest enemies are the slowest ones. These skills are totaly wasted on targets that will be killed in a second or two. Again a smarter approach is needed so you will not regret buying and wasting these skills.

3. Many area skills such as Ward of Disruption are wasted as well because they activate when the first enemy from a larger group enters the range of the tower. Scourgers (the main reason I buy that skill) are slow moving and usualy in groups. Only the one or two of them are affected when the skill is triggered. There are two variants of changing that - either use a counter (1, 3 or 6 enemies are silenced with Ward of Disruption) and if the skill is 2nd or 3d level the tower will silence the first enemy when it enters in range, after 2 seconds another one and so on until the counter hits zero. When the counter is zero than the skills starts to charge again. Or the whole group is silenced when it gets in the center of range. Of course if the towers are made smart (i.e. they are controlled by intelligent beings inside it and are not mechanical toys as of now) the AI will see if only one enemy comes near or a group of enemies that need to be silenced.

4. I think KR 4 needs better distribution among skill levels of damage for some skills. Eldrich Doom kills one enemy and does 80, 180, 260 damage. Why not 90, 180, 270 damage? The main effect of course is insta-kill and this is why the first level is 325 gold and the other two - 185 gold. Kingdom Rush shines among other games because of precision to details and in that tower skill damage per level is random.

5. Better distribution of skills per towers - Arcane Archers is a broken tower to me. It is a Ranged Tower that does physical damage but its skill Burst Arrow does magic damage. You place Ranged tower on a path mostly full of enemies with no armor or with magic resistance. Burst Arrow is wasted on them. I don't get that combination - what was the designer idea behind it. The only map that it is somehow helpful is in the Tainted Pit map where you have many spiders and some Shadow Champions which have high armor and very little choice which towers to place.

Another mix of skills that do not match - Golden Longbows - Instakill and another skills that doubles the damage from all sources. If you can kill it in a single hit why Mark it for double damage? It would be much better if instead of Mark of the Hunter they can slow down some enemy or enemies. Or even better - put them to sleep so they can shoot longer at them in attempts to trigger a killing chance. This is much better sinergy.

And speaking of sinergy between skills - again - the Ward of Disruption feels misplaced on the Wild Magus Tower. Most players buy that skill to block spellcasters. Spellcaster have medium to high magic resistance. SO you have the "smart" choise between two options - either block the caster abilities with Wild Magus Tower but you cant kill them with magic damage OR instead place a Ranged tower but you can't block their abilities (and if it is Arcane Archers you cant hurt them much with Burst Arrows.)

It would be much better combination of skills if Arcane Archers had the Hunters Marks and Ward of Disruption. Golden Longbows - Insta Kill and Sleep Arrows and Wild Magus some other meaningfull and theme-fitting ability.

6. Teleport, Mass Teleporg (Faustus), Twister and Timelapse - in the way it works is a double blade. There are many times when I use Lightning Spell or some AOE hero spell and just a second after triggering it the main target I want to hit is teleported or even worse - a whole group of enemies are phased out of battlefield. Or just a second before a Burning Nut, Burst arrow, Sleeping arrow, Hunters Mark is about to land over an enemy it is teleported back/phased out. Skills and spells that are supposed to help you work against you. The game will have much more sense if all elements of towers work in sinergy. In these cases here it seems that the towers are controlled by good but very stupid guys inside.

7. Maps - I prefer playing KR Original and KR Origins but not Frontiers. In Frontiers - the only good levels are these out of the campaign. All other levels are plain, boring and full of enemies that are simply not interesting or challenging. The only campaign level that offers some challenge in Frontiers is the last one. On the other hand all other non-campaign levels are beatiful, well designed and offer good challenge. KR Original has 99,99% interesting levels, I played over and over again all levels after the first champion (because level 4th towers are available). I was completly bored with the first 14 levels in Frontiers. KR Origins has about 60% interesting campaing levels, the rest is just plain filler. In Origins all levels after the Gryphon point are worth replaying with different heroes and tower combinations. I really hope that the same mistake as in Frontiers will not be repeated in the 4th installment of the game. Most of Frontiers enemies are not even worth of mentioning in terms of skills and there is not much differentiation among them. Most of Frontier maps are poorly designed with linear way of placing towers. At most of Frontier campaign levels (not the undead and sea levels) you dont even need to think which towers to place. A simple example - I have played all of them placing only certain type of towers - Archmage towers or Tribal Axes or Cannons with one or two barraks - guess what - you always win. The only map in Origins where you can do this is fighting Malicia - I have won in different replays with all towers being Arcane Archer, Wild Mages, Druids/Weirdwoods (with only two archer towers) - only the High Mages fail to win against the evil queen. If you can win a map with mostly one type of tower, the map is poorly designed and it doesnt matter what choices you make.
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Re: Kingdom Rush 4 mechanics

by AerisDraco » Tue Aug 29, 2017 1:35 am

I'll only argue against a few of these points.

Also, hi and welcome to the forums!

2 and 3. In some ways it's kinda part of the balance now. The fact that the spells target the first enemy affect how good they are. We've had Totem of Spirits v. Ward of Disruption debates before, for example.

4. Frankly I have no idea why they chose those numbers.

5. I think you might have the Arcane Archer misunderstood. While it is very strong, you forgot the fact that the Arcane Archer passively destroys (portions) of an enemy's magic resistance, thus making them more vulnerable to Burst Arrow. Also, Hunter's Mark is supposed to function as a more reliable source of damage, since the chance for the IK is still only ~1-6%. In addition, it also works versus Bosses/Mini-Bosses.

6. That is very annoying, 'tis true.

7. You raise good points, but people have completed maps from all games with only one type of tower; thus making your final point invalid. :)
Also, imo Savages had one of the best synergies in their group in the game, while Saurians all have annoying gimmicks.
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Re: Kingdom Rush 4 mechanics

by WhiteRider12 » Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:31 pm

Hi and thanks :)

Of course 2. and 3. is how things are now, and most players have adapted to that way, but its a designers choice. It could be better. Whats the point to buy 2nd and 3d level of Ward of Disruption hoping that more than 1 enemy will be silenced.

5. -> I am quite familiar with the Arcane Archers inate ability, it lowers MR by 1% per shot and this is how it works on paper not in reality. A Webspitter with 800 hp (veteran difficulty, never played on normal) if it takes damage only from Arcane Archers will be with Low MR when it is about to die (50 - 100 hp left). Usualy it takes damage from other sources as well - Druids/Weirdwoods or Golden Archers and dies either with high or medium magic resistance. So again if it is shot with Burst Arrow it will take in the best scenario half damage or the Burst arrow is wasted on them (with 50-100 damage left).
I am not saying that Hunters Mark is obsolete skill, quite the contrary, but it seems misplaced on Golden Archers next to Crimson Sentence. And it is a must only versus Golems and Shadow Champions which are immune to Insta Kill effects. I am not arguing against the skill itself but its place under that particular tower, because it somehow dublicates Crimson Sentence against all other enemies different than Golems or Champions (all enemies that take double damage die in matter of 3-4 seconds if not earlier when cursed to take double damage, which is quite the same Insta Kill). Crimson Sentence gives you 3-6-9% chance for killing with half that chance when enemy is at short distance.

7. I will disagree or even better I want to learn from someone who has beaten the demonic maps in KR Original with Ranged towers only or even Tesla (because at the beggining you dont have enough money to buy it).

Or the snow maps with Mage Towers only because they are full of spiders. There is a differentiation in KR Original and Origins, in KR Frontiers campaign levels it lacks completly.

I have looked for videos in YouTube that show someone beating Original levels with one type of tower but found nothing and I have tried dozen times and always failed. So I will presume for the time being that it is impossible to beat all maps in all version with one type of tower (this is only possible in Frontiers - try the Sauron maps 12-14 level of campaign with only Tribal Axes, Rangers, Archmages, Necros or either type of cannons with 1 or 2 barraks and try the same with the 4 spider levels after you kill Malicia. Even with that Savage sinergy between shamans and other Savages it is very easy ot go either with magic or might towers. Just split the Shaman from the main group, kill it or be patient and dont call early waves. Try the Volcano level in Frontiers (where you have to save the princess) with archers or mages only - with most heroes you will easily win. So I dont think this is invalid point. Quite the contrary - because of this I think that Frontier campaign levels are very plain and super easy with no replay value at all. I have spent 90% of my time trying to find the best tower combination in the sea/undead bonus levels or a way to kill the bosses before it crosses half of the battlefield or even earlier.
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Re: Kingdom Rush 4 mechanics

by kicorse » Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:49 pm

Interesting to read your thoughts! Ultimately, it comes down to what sort of challenge you do or don't want.

I've come to enjoy the challenge of working with the fact that your towers won't target intelligently, and dealing with this seems to be a fundamental part of the game: e.g. repositioning my barracks on Glacial Heights to let the Troll Breakers through to my instant kills at the back, while holding off the Pathfinders, or placing reinforcements to separate Blood Tricksters from the savages in front, while still just in range of Totem of Silence. I feel as if the game would lose something if intelligent targeting became standard, but it would be a great special ability for a tower or hero to give nearby towers, analogous to Falconer.

I feel the same about towers which do a mixture of physical and magical damage, and special abilities that can be harmful or supremely helpful depending on how they're used. You mention Teleport and it's successors, which is a good idea that has now been done to death. I'd love to see more creative special abilities like Poison Arrows, which gives the intelligent targeting that you crave. There are some situations (e.g. targeting giant enemies near graveyards) where this is really useful, but there are others (e.g. finishing leaking enemies) where it is harmful, and that's a good thing.

On the other hand, I get irritated by having to deal with many different paths on a level, which is a challenge you seem to enjoy. I play Origins much less than the others for that reason. My favourite levels tend to be ones with an interesting mix of enemies, but in which there are a few tower placements that can be used to target all enemies. e.g. Bandit's Lair, Hakraj Plateau (I love putting that Tesla in the middle so it hits all three paths), Darklight Depths.

I agree with you about the distribution of special abilities, though. Some of them seem so obviously OP or UP relative to one another. I've managed to get fun out of engineering situations in which Polymorph is a good investment, but Core Drill is beyond even that. An instant-kill on a tower designed to be the ultimate in small-damage-to-lots-of-enemies, and it has a ridiculously long cooldown, and it's more expensive than other instant-kills! And yes, things like progressing 90, 180, 260 seem odd.
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