Tower Defense Suggestion - Solo mode (1v1)
Together with many, many other players I've been asking about a solo mode for Tower Defense (from now on TD) for a very long time now*. I obviously can't read every single post or message on Discord, but I've never actually seen a member from the Cubecraft team talk about why this isn't on the server already or why it won't happen (etc). So hopefully I can either raise awareness through this post or finally find out the reason(s) as to why it hasn't and isn't going to happen.
Almost 2 years ago there was finally a spark of hope within the TD community that at least some of our biggest grievances would potentially be fixed/changed. The team posted a thread asking for suggestions. The issues that still plague the game were already present back then (and long before) still are in the game today. If you are interested in some of these issues you can read through 2 years of content (just as a huge portion of the threads posted in that category consist out of the same issues and ideas players have wanted for years)!
But back to it:
Why a solo mode?
Short answer: Why not? What would be the harm in it? The game was active enough to survive The Big Change, it still is active enough to play 6v6 matches, 1v1 is actually already possible and fun(!)... so why not make it an actual mode?
1v1 is already possible and fun, you say? Yes, even in the current state the game works just fine (and in my opinion it's even more fun) when I'm fortunate enough to be in a 1v1. This only happens very rarely though. The player count has to be low and everyone but 2 players have to leave early game, but once every blue moon it happens and it's great. This makes me thing that balancing should not be an issue. The game is already playable and fun in 1v1 matches. It shouldn't require reworking the game.
Anyone who plays TD probably is well aware how having team members can make, but also completely break, the experience. I don't think there is a single other mode in the game that makes it as easy to grief as TD does - both intentionally as well as unintentional. Players don't know what to do and place towers in wrong locations, fail to understand to place towers on the grid, don't have paths unlocked and no one in the team can help them with upgrading to a path (counterintuitive design for a team game in my opinion, but that's besides the point for today). My first action is to ask them to change or remove a tower with a short explanation why, to hopefully teach the player a little bit about the game. Sadly this doesn't work on everyone. Some players might not look at their chat, have the chat disabled, don't care or see it as a reason to do even more harm to the team for the sake of it.
It doesn't help that Cubecraft has removed the tutorial they once had. The mode is incredibly fun, but only if you know what you are doing.
Right now the game can sometimes take a long time, which also leads to players leaving. You can end up alone vs a team of 6 people... and the game does nothing to detect or counter this. It isn't even that hard alone, but because you still have the same wait times in between using potions you can never defend against a 6 man rush with just 1 freeze potions every 12 seconds, while they are able to throw 6 times as many speed. Now, I don't know how you can combat that issue in a fair way... but I do know a solo mode would prevent this
And as other games on the server show: a game can both have a healthy solo and team playerbase.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* https://www.cubecraft.net/search/287486/?q=solo&t=post&c[child_nodes]=1&c[nodes][0]=58&o=relevance &
https://www.cubecraft.net/search/28...t&c[child_nodes]=1&c[nodes][0]=58&o=relevance
Together with many, many other players I've been asking about a solo mode for Tower Defense (from now on TD) for a very long time now*. I obviously can't read every single post or message on Discord, but I've never actually seen a member from the Cubecraft team talk about why this isn't on the server already or why it won't happen (etc). So hopefully I can either raise awareness through this post or finally find out the reason(s) as to why it hasn't and isn't going to happen.
Almost 2 years ago there was finally a spark of hope within the TD community that at least some of our biggest grievances would potentially be fixed/changed. The team posted a thread asking for suggestions. The issues that still plague the game were already present back then (and long before) still are in the game today. If you are interested in some of these issues you can read through 2 years of content (just as a huge portion of the threads posted in that category consist out of the same issues and ideas players have wanted for years)!
But back to it:
Why a solo mode?
Short answer: Why not? What would be the harm in it? The game was active enough to survive The Big Change, it still is active enough to play 6v6 matches, 1v1 is actually already possible and fun(!)... so why not make it an actual mode?
1v1 is already possible and fun, you say? Yes, even in the current state the game works just fine (and in my opinion it's even more fun) when I'm fortunate enough to be in a 1v1. This only happens very rarely though. The player count has to be low and everyone but 2 players have to leave early game, but once every blue moon it happens and it's great. This makes me thing that balancing should not be an issue. The game is already playable and fun in 1v1 matches. It shouldn't require reworking the game.
Anyone who plays TD probably is well aware how having team members can make, but also completely break, the experience. I don't think there is a single other mode in the game that makes it as easy to grief as TD does - both intentionally as well as unintentional. Players don't know what to do and place towers in wrong locations, fail to understand to place towers on the grid, don't have paths unlocked and no one in the team can help them with upgrading to a path (counterintuitive design for a team game in my opinion, but that's besides the point for today). My first action is to ask them to change or remove a tower with a short explanation why, to hopefully teach the player a little bit about the game. Sadly this doesn't work on everyone. Some players might not look at their chat, have the chat disabled, don't care or see it as a reason to do even more harm to the team for the sake of it.
It doesn't help that Cubecraft has removed the tutorial they once had. The mode is incredibly fun, but only if you know what you are doing.
Right now the game can sometimes take a long time, which also leads to players leaving. You can end up alone vs a team of 6 people... and the game does nothing to detect or counter this. It isn't even that hard alone, but because you still have the same wait times in between using potions you can never defend against a 6 man rush with just 1 freeze potions every 12 seconds, while they are able to throw 6 times as many speed. Now, I don't know how you can combat that issue in a fair way... but I do know a solo mode would prevent this
And as other games on the server show: a game can both have a healthy solo and team playerbase.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* https://www.cubecraft.net/search/287486/?q=solo&t=post&c[child_nodes]=1&c[nodes][0]=58&o=relevance &
https://www.cubecraft.net/search/28...t&c[child_nodes]=1&c[nodes][0]=58&o=relevance
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