Cloud Fun

[Zu]

Designer:		Zu
Level Set:	4HS/HS	Area 4 "High On Sweetz" Level 13 (Battle)
Date Released:		September 30, 2013
Status:		Released
Notes:		Size=Huge (101X101) Density=Normal
		Forum's web host
Statz Page image		Forum's web host
View The Map		4,252,609 bytez - Forum's web host

My first Battlez level.

[GooRoo]

This Custom Battle has been sent out to all of the people on my Gruntz Fanz address list. For anyone not on that list, you may request the puzzle from the Designer (Zu) or from GooRoo until the web host problem is resolved, and the download link is enabled.

[Zu]

Until the matter is resolved, I will use Dropbox links for the map and the download.

[Zu]

Since the problem seems to be solved, is it possible to update the links now?

And move the CL to the Battlez section, by the way...

EDIT: Oh, I didn't notice your post in the Custom Level Indices, sorry.

[GooRoo]

I was just heading here in order to move it into the Battlez Board when my e-mail indicated a message taking me right here! Thank you! It saved me a search (because my memory could have failed me, thinking I had already moved it. I usually do that when I distribute any CL.)

First thingz first ... fix the linkz in the announcement post, then move the thread to where it belongz.

[GooRoo]

I don't understand why the ThumbNail link workz just fine, but trying to display the full image givez me a 404 error ... page not found. I even re-named the image, removing the single quote, thinking that was the problem, but it made no difference. I will continue working on the image problem after I move this thread into Battlez.

[GooRoo]

Well, I had to remove the space between 'Cloud' and 'Fun' from the web host directory name in order to get the link to work ... but now it does.

[Zu]

Has anyone tried this Battle yet?

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

Sorry, man. I don't play battle levels anymore as I have gotten bored of how stupid the NPCs are.

Even the ones in the difficult settings are a joke because of how easy it is to beat them.

[GooRoo]

Dec 23, 2013 18:30:52 GMT -8 Blaze The Movie Fan said:

Sorry, man. I don't play battle levels anymore as I have gotten bored of how stupid the NPCs are.

Even the ones in the difficult settings are a joke because of how easy it is to beat them.

What options do you use when playing Battlez? Such as the difficulty level of the computer opponents, and the number of enemy Gruntz compared to your own Gruntz?

I do not play Battlez, except to verify them, when I strongly bias things in my favor. But I am looking for problems in the map, not interested so much in defeating the computer enemies. So I want to move my Gruntz all over the map looking for such things as Giant Rocks with fatal logic, or Switches with anything to operate ... that sort of thing. Granted that computer Gruntz refuse to do several things that humans would do (like crossing an Arrow), so any Battlez map with tiles 201 through 209 automatically are flawed (for computer play). But with equal numbers, and some measure of intelligence, I believe there are some Battlez that can be difficult for most Gruntzerz.

[SwordGrunt]

As GooRoo said you can make it difficult with the amount of Gruntz... try limiting yourself to the amount required to conquer a Fort, which is usually 2 or 3. That can be quite a challenge.

[Blaze The Movie Fan]

Alright, maybe I should explain what I'm talking about.

Gauntlets grunts constantly try to break a brick even after they tried breaking a gold brick.

And also, none of the enemy grunts knew how to use a spring properly when playing against them in my own battle level The Oil Split. Even if they had a spring.

It's stupid stuff like that which makes this not fun.

[MMM]

Half of the normal Battlez levels only require a single grunt, and by restricting myself to a single grunt while letting the AIs control 15 I can sometimes make pretty fun battles. I still manage to win over half the time and these conditions are admittedly not the most ideal or fun ones, but thankfully it turned out that it's actually possible to battle other human players, so I might look into trying out some of these custom Battlez soon - if you two are still around, you should totally join in to try it out.

As for this map, I haven't yet tried it, but at first glance it looks like it would be really fun and unique. I don't think I've seen any Battlez maps with rolling obstacles that trigger multiple switchez, or red pyramidz that give access to Wingz that will let you bypass other gruntz entirely. Really want to try this one out.

[swietymiki]

I'm afraid Blaze "officially" quit this forum some time ago and many other members are only very rarely active, while others stay silent. Maybe if we were a few years earlier, there would be more eager players.

Nevertheless, out of many Battlez that were released, not all have view the map imagez, so there might be more interesting maps that just no one noticed yet. Maybe we would finally get to work this "Capture the Warpstone Piece" gamemode that was not possible to play with the AI (this one). I'd also have a reason to remake "Cash Mania" or try creating a Battle map with an idea that I've had for a while - Gruntz Tower Defense.

[MMM]

I had hope there might be more people still around, but thinking about it more carefully I think apart from yourself I've only seen the admins post and I doubt they would be interested.

Capture the Warpstone seems interesting... if played with 4 humans at least, because unless the game code itself is changed I doubt that the winning condition being fulfilled by an AI would ever stop causing problems. I've downloaded it in case we do ever manage to get 4 human players though.

Anyways, I'll be off the forum for now to go set up my computer to play again.

[MMM]

We just played this on multiplayer and... while it's technically playable, it needs fixing in many areas.

On the first battle I found it extremely easy to get into my neighbored fort. The reason it was so easy is that all tools necessary (spy gear, gauntletz and shovelz) are provided immediately at the starting positions and the enemy can't do anything apart from killing the invaders since all pyramidz and bridgez are operated automatically by rolling objects. Something else we both noticed was that there were a lot of bridges in general and it was extremely easy to lose a grunt if their movements weren't all being precisely controlled.

On the second battle however we discovered even more gameplay flaws. It turned out that the steroidz regenerate faster than they deplete and I found this out sort of by surprise by means of having all my gruntz destroyed by swietymiki's rockz and welderz gruntz in mere seconds, even trying to avoid them just with a spy gruntz was impossible. Having circumvented the entire map and received all the powerups on the border as well, they seem to last equally long, which is far too long.

After I eventually, and painfully, conquered his fort by means of wingz spam, the AIs both had 15 gruntz (or were really close to it at least), and when I checked their forts what I saw was that they had all holed up inside the fort apart from the odd grunt or two that used wingz while I opened the switch. The "worst" part was when I went to invade the blue AI, they broke the way into their own fort...

Here's the statz that'll show you all this stuff I'm talking about is actually real. Virtually no kills because of the trapped AIs, and very high powerup numbers for the AIs (higher than tools and toys combined!) due to the very fast refreshing rate.



TL;)R things that need to be changed:
- There are too many bridges
- Players can't, and should be able to defend either their pyramids or bridges, maybe both
- Powerup cooldown needs to be increased drastically, powerup duration needs to be decreased drastically
- AIs always spawn inside their own fort

[Zu]

Do you think you could draw over the map of the level or something to show in what ways the level should be modified? That would help me visualize what would be the best course of action to improve it.

[swietymiki]

I'll give suggestions to fix some of the issues, mostly respawn times. Spygear provided at the beginning should be swapped for a different tool... not sure for what though, since brickz would have a hard time to get back through the pyramidz.

All the toyz scattered around the map take only 10 seconds to respawn, which enables a crazy mobile toy spam. This results in more enemies falling into the void than of being killed, as you can see on the statz page (and all human players being afraid to leave their bases to avoid getting insta-gokarted). I'd suggest making them 1 use only, there is plenty placed on the map and in the Gruntz Machine already.

About the fortz themselves, the route through all obstacles is not viable. The roidz powerup lasts 3 times longer than it takes to respawn, which is ridiculously strong. A single Grunt equipped with a ranged weapon will shred through all enemies that attempt to conquer the fort this way. I'd lower the duration of the powerup to 10 seconds and make it respawn every few minutes. Other powerupz scattered around the map last 90 seconds (!) and having an invincible Grunt walking for over a minute and conquering your fort is not balanced at all. I'd change it to 30 seconds and make them respawn every few minutes like roidz.

Wingz (and other toolz on the edges of the map as well, just that we haven't exploited them) have a 10 second cooldown, which is again very overpowered, especially that wingz can just fly around your entire fort and enter just next to the king. And if you are being attacked by 8 flying Gruntz at once then it's game over. I'd make wingz provided in fortz 1 use only to make this strategy harder to pull off, change the cooldowns of all toolz on the edges from 10 seconds to at least a minute and possibly also add object dropperz to prevent gathering Gruntz on these islandz to farm toolz.

[MMM]

I wanted to upload an image of the full map, but it failed to upload to imgur probably because it was too big, so I settled for this (which should still show everything that matters)



Things I did:
- Cross out all the toys (6 per fort) except for the ones in the middle area (I haven't witnessed combat in the middle area, but I don't think the toys there would be abused as much as the ones near fortz), they should either be removed or be made one use only. I haven't tested the cooldowns on the toys in the middle area but they shouldn't respawn as quickly as those Roidz do.
- Replace the area between fortz and spawnz with an area that is accessible to all gruntz at all times that leads to a BTS at the end, from which the spawn, GHS and single green pyramid associated with it near the fort would disappear (and maybe it's for the better if the Roidz are also removed, and if not then at least the duration and cooldown should be addressed), this should fix AIs getting stuck in their own fort and also give players a degree of control over their fort. (also, the four switchez controlling access to the fort should not be accessible by gruntz, the two areas should be separated by walls)
- Cross out the spygearz at the spawn points, which are to be replaced with more shovelz. Clubz are the only reasonable alternative I can really think of since they would be useful, but not overly strong, as a combat item, and 3 pairs of gauntletz would be unnecessary.
- Move the BTSs that grant access to the middle area of the map as to give a little more time, since I found it pretty hard to get there for battlez map standards.
- Remove the rolling obstacles that are in the areas in between fortz that don't appear to control anything and make the areas they occupied more traversable to hopefully make the map at least a little easier to navigate. (Gruntz shouldn't be able to walk into the other rolling obstacle and the switch that would control access to the center island though, so a wall would separate these two areas as well)
- Highlight the bridges that lead away from fortz, which I would replace with normal tiles, except the area with rolling obstacles and two BTS would look really empty so I'm not sure how I would fix the area - I decided to leave those as food for thought for now.

I would mention all of the tool and powerup spawn stuff as well, but I would just be echoing the previous post, so I'll leave that be. Navigating the center island can also be a bit annoying because there's holes everywhere but it's probably fine as is since I would usually not send more than one grunt there at a time. Come to think of it I also never tried to dig up any of the holes, which may be a good idea to try out whenever I get back to this map.

[Zu]

Okay, so I have an alternate version ready: www.dropbox.com/s/hjfvk7u6dueywos/ZusCloudFunV3.WWD?dl=0

Here's an outline of what I did, based on your suggestions:

- Replaced the abyss with water, so that the danger of walking into an abyss by accident becomes non-existent.

- Changed up the area in the middle of the forts the way MMM explained it.

- Changed the pickups to respawn every 2 minutes instead of every 10 seconds.

- Slowed down the rolling balls that control the bridges leading to the section in the center of the map.

Hopefully this will work out better in the long run.