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SummonersLab, Part 3: Tower Changes

Lord Desert·12/2/2016, 10:26:16 PM·13 votes·993 views

Today we look at the recent tower changes and see if they hit the mark or if theres room for some improvement.

Currently those are the topics and their (hopefully) release date: SummonersLab, The Introduction Here SummonersLab, Part 1: An additional Crit Item Here SummonersLab, Part 2: Crit Algorithm Improvement Here SummonersLab, Part 3: Tower Changes Here SummonersLab, Part 4: Ohmwrecker Here SummonersLab, Part 5: Support Role Improvement(1) Here SummonersLab, Part 6: Wits End Here SummonersLab, Part 7: Smite Buffs Here SummonersLab, Part 8: Plants Here SummonersLab, Part 9: ** Support Role Improvement (2)** _ Here _ SummonersLab, Part 10: ** General Improvements (1)** Here _ SummonersLab, Part 11: ** General Improvements (2)**_ Here

Ill put links to the posts here, so you can easily view all of them. http://imgur.com/FN2e8Ns

1. The Change

Currently every tower on the map is the same typ, this was made in patch 6.22 for consistency reasons. Before that the nexus and inhib towers fired a laser beam which dealt lower dmg but fired alot faster and ramped up in dmg. To avoid a wall of numbers here, the dmg was about the same, but it had 75% armorpen instead of the 30% from the normal bullets.

If only the armorpen changed why do i even make a post about this?

  1. The stats may stayed around the same, but the clearing time of minions changed alot!
  2. There is something that bothered me for quiet some time with the tower algorithm, but we revisit that later. But basicly the towers got alot weaker, you may have noticed that already in your games, and im here to show you why they really are weaker!

#2. Math, .....again

Jesus, to much math everywhere, but lets get through this: The tower attackspeed changed from 4.0 to 0.83, the armorpen went down from 75% to 30% and the turret shots now deal a fixed %max HP vs minions, depending on the minion Typ. And the beam also ramped up vs everything, while the tower bullets only ramp up vs champs.

Ok lets first look at the clearing time of a normal minion wave: (3melees, 3caster) I will not do 100% precise and detailed math here, since that is way more complicated then needed...

Old: Melee: ~2.5s - 3s (depending on the ingametime), Caster _ ~1.5s_ New: Melee:_ 3.6s (3shots), Caster: 2.4s (2 shots)_ Total clear time: Old: 9s + 3s = ~12 s New: 10.8s + 4.8s = 15.6s About 4s difference, That is frecking huge! And its only a normal Wave, not a big one or with siege minions! But the best part only comes now!

Superminions need 20 shots, ignoring their 30% redcution vs tower and their 30armor. So to take down a Superminion we need ~30 shots, which take ~36s to be fired! A new Superminions spawns every 30s...

Calculating the old time is way to depended on the game, but in a 1v1 the old tower, is about ~40% - 25% faster.(depending on the ingame time) So it would take **only 20s - 27s **to clear a Superminion. Those current towers are WEAK! Extra: I tried to include the new minions in the math with the old towers so we get a accurate comparision.

As you can see, the old towers cleared normal minions faster and were by far supiorier at clearing Supers! I would highly suggest to reverted this, or try to compensate the now way weaker Towers! They need it! Right now they are made out of paper!

3. Armor and Mr Gain

For those who may not know: Towers get Ar&Mr over time! making them a bit more sturdy. You may have know that, but did you know that the gain is based solely on the ingame time? Outers get +2 Ar/Mr every minute starting at 1:00, capping at +30. Inners get +2 Ar/Mr every minute starting at 16 min ingame! capping at +30. InhibTs get +2 Ar/Mr every minute starting at 31 min ingame! capping at +30. NexusTs get +2 Ar/Mr every minute starting at 30 min ingame! capping at +30.

So Tier 2 towers only get stronger AFTER 16 mins! And Tier 3s only after 31 mins! Thus if you take a Outer early, you can push futher and deal more dmg vs the Inner then you did vs the outer! You have till 16 min ingame before it starts to get a bit more durable.

You dont only lose the Map Pressure, Safety and are even further behind because the enemy got Gold from killing your tower, no, even the next tower is considerable weaker in terms of durability too! This is a bit to hard of a punishment if you ask me! ** So what do I plan to change? ** Thats simple: If you lose a Tower, the current stacks are transfered over to the next tower! And/Or as soon as a tower becomes targetable (so the tower before got destroyed) its starts its Ar/Mr scaling! And not waits x years before it gets slightly stronger.
That is the basic version.

The advanced version adds every stack from the tower before over to the next, if it gets destroyed. That means, if the Outer gets all 15 stacks (+30Ar/Mr) the Inner gets those stacks, as soon as the Outer gets destroyed. It then starts immediatley scaling up to +30 Ar/Mr additional on top of the already +30 from the outer. if now a fully stacked Inner gets destroyed the Inhibtower then gets +60 Ar/Mr!!(30 Outer + 30 Inner). And this goes on to the nexus towers. But the nexus towers only get the highest stacks from 1 lane, and not from all 3 together.

**What does this do? **

  1. If you take 1 tower and leave the lane the next tower gets stonger faster.
  2. Taking towers fast will be rewarded with less durable Towers. But those towers will still be more durable then the current version, since they start stacking immediately! And not just at a certain time in the game.
  3. Inhib and Nexus towers will be far more durable then the current versions.
  4. You will not be as punishable after losing a tower, since the next tower will be more durable.
  5. They still get Ar/Mr at certain times! Like the current version, but can start scaling up faster.

4. Extra Ideas

Currently the towers are to weak. Doing the faster scling Ar/Mr idea + buffing/reverting the Inhib-/Nexus Towers might be already enough. On Top the ramp up dmg should stay longer, before reseting and untargetablility no longer reset tower aggro! (suggested by ZT Xperimentor) But could look at some crazy ideas too, those are not as fleshed out/ looked at in terms of balance:

Buyable Tower Upgrades:

  • faster AS
  • more dmg/ more dmg vs champs/minions only
  • bigger range
  • more ar/mr/hp
  • a shield if friendly champs are nearby (like old Inners)
  • upgraded Hp regen

Since towers are defensiv only structures, making the ugrades purchasable with money or cs is not so good, since the team that might need those will have less gold already. If a tower is lost or you destroyed a tower then you might be able to choose 1 upgrade. If its purchasable with Money it might only be a late game thing, which is not that nice. Another option would be a free "reseach" which takes like 10 mins to finish, but who gets to decide which research should be done, is rather tricky. A voting system might be a decent solution. But this might be overall a bit to gimmicky, and its impact might not be that noticable.

#5. TL;DR:

  • current Towers are to weak, specially Inhib- & NexusTowers
  • reverting the Inhib/nexus change might be a good decision
  • Ar/Mr scaling should start as soon as the lower tier tower gets destroyed!
  • possibly transfering gained stacks from lower tier tower on top of own scalings, making specially Inhib&Nexus Tower way more durable
  • ramped up dmg stays longer and untargetability will not reset tower aggro
  • Buyable tower upgrades (not fully fleshed out yet)

I toned down the math part alot, a good decision, trust me! The superminion calculations were crazy complicated, i hope i could make them understandable enough. What do you think about the faster scaling Ar/Mr? or transfering already gained stacks? Do you have other ideas for the towers?

13 Comments

Epicanian12/4/2016, 1:23:56 AM1 votes

Well thought out post, you clearly spent a lot of time on it. Surprised it's seen so little attention. +1

ZT Xperimentor12/16/2016, 7:34:06 AM1 votes

Some other ideas I've collected for possible buffs, only one of which I'd hope is sufficient.

1 - Give them grievous wounds; to reduce the annoyance of sustainers from tower diving early.

2 - Add an exhaust effect; whoever the tower attacks has reduced damage output.

3 - Deal a percentage of the target's health; either current, maximum, or missing. Dealing all three would be absurd.

4 - Remove the current damage cap on their 'warming up/heated up' passive from their 'penetrating bullets' item.

5 - Increase their Range and/or Rate of attack.

6 - Give them a longer time before reseting; turrets currently immediately loose all stacks of 'heat' against someone just because they side step it's max range for a half second, perhaps a 2 second window would be sufficient.

7 - Give them the ability to ignore 'dodge' mechanics; like the previous, they'll reset their aggro (and thus damage) when it's targeted champion becomes untargetable despite being in range (fizz, ekko, hourglass, ext.).

8 - Splash damage when attacking enemy champions; straight forward enough I hope, similar to being able to target more than a single enemy champion.

9 - Grant towers some kind of interruption ability; so an enemy champion can't camp underneath your tower, like a slight knockback similar to dragon or something.

10 - Deal true damage; self explanatory.

11 - Boost tower defense stats; either return scaling over time, or just a general boost (health, armor, magic resist; or some combination).

I do like your idea to buy/build items though, reminds me of the black market brawlers game mode.

LeBlanc Rose5/27/2017, 5:27:40 AM1 votes

Simple Addition: Currently, the bolts are spaced out evenly. However to make dives a small bit more damaging (non team), I think turrets (the inhibitor and Nexus) should deal 3 bolts in the space of 1, then cool down for a period. It might have a 0.2 AS, but must wait 3 seconds after 3 autos.