So I wrote a bunch about my favorite tower defense game(s) ever in this previous blogpost, and in a very rare move for this blog I actually went back and edited it to add more of my thoughts to it, but I decided that STILL was not enough so here I am writing even more. This concept sort out branched out from me thinking of what I wanted out of my "dream" new Gemcraft game. Since the developer isn't working on the next one right now (which is fine by the way, after making and improving the same game for like 15 years you get a break, go off King), but after a lot of thought about it, I started to realize a few things, specifically about the colors of Gemcraft gems and limitations of a game.
Quick reminder; every color of Gem grants a special effect on a hit, like poison for green gems or slowing for blue gems. Gems in traps have great special but shit damage and range, where as towers have great range and damage but weaker specials. Mixing gem colors reduces their specials by a lot, but will slightly increase their base gems in dual and triple color gems.
This leads to a an interesting and (hopefully) strategically deep choice in the game. Do you want to run towers with weaker damage but better specials? Which specials? Or is the special so important you put in a trap? This already has a slight problem as there is almost no reason to put a dual or more color gem in a trap unless you can actually make it stronger with a buffing gem (Poolbound, Bloodhound) or make it hit multiple enemies (chain), but the core choice of what gems to use is part of the game and your strategy. I like this on the surface. But with more thought, a problem arises. Even if all gems are otherwise equal; There are just certain gems you're never going to put in towers and some you're never going to put in traps. Because they have different roles in the game, what types of gems are best for each are exclusive to each type. For example, putting an armor-shredding gem in a tower lets it remove a small amount of armor whenever it hits an enemy. Even if armor shredding was so important that it became a vital part of your strategy, why would you ever put it in a tower when you could put it in a trap and get the main value instead? Tower gems are things that support their function of damage with maybe a secondary effect. So crit gems, chain gems, maybe slow or poison and that's being generous along with the no-brainer gem colors that just make your gems "better" at everything. Meanwhile, gem effects that weaken monsters on a hit are just better to put in a trap, because they hit so much faster. Tower gems at least encourage you to mix and match colors for the dual or triple gem power bonus; so with no other important choices to make; I usually just defaulted to putting a Mana Gem as a tower gem component, since it will still generate a little bit of mana even when diluted since they attack so much. And this led to the real problem.
Engine Generation
In any tycoon, strategy, or game focused around resources or management; anything that generates more resources is always going to be the best strategy. This is totally fine in games designed around it, typically the idea is finding the best return on your investments or how to capitalize on them, but the problem is when they're provided as an alternate or "equal" choice to others.
Just think about it for a second. If you're playing an RPG and get the choice to take a reward from a quest and you can choose between a sword much better then your current one, a powerful and rare healing consumable, or an accessory that increases your experience gain by +5%, which one are you going to pick? Almost everyone is going to pick the experience booster. Not only because it's implied to last longer then the others, a temporary benefit as opposed to a permanent increase, but also because experience is going to be the engine driving the game and your progression forward. We can see this in almost every game. In 4x games, science tends to be King, and so the faction with the best science is almost always top of the tier list. In a fighting game, the character with the fastest attacks and best frame-data-advantage is going to be the best character, because they get the most "resources" in that style of game. Gemcraft exemplifies this problem even more because of how central mana is a resource; not just your method of crafting your defense but ALSO your health and ALSO your ability to invest in bombing enemy waves to get more XP and ALSO used as a panic button if things get too scary. It's the central resource of the game. The problem here is that a single gem color is by far and away SO much better then the other gems, so integral to the game's mechanics, that every single possible build and combination of strategies will feature them prominently. From beating a map normally to challenge modes to endless endurance waves to see how long you can last; all of them feature mana farming with orange gems as a core strategy. Using chain+mana+bloodhound for bonus to specials from hit can create an insanely powerful synergy that you place in traps near the start of each course, so every monster naturally gets hit by them, and you can build as many as you want. This not only trivializes campaign levels, but also lets you get to the highest scores of endurance and beat the hardest challenges as long as they're allowed within.
Do you see the issue with this?
I dislike games with false choices. Something obviously and miles above better then everything else doesn't lead to interesting and meaningful decisions in a game. TTRPG example? Oldschool Haste or Speed spells letting you get additional actions. So much stronger then any other choice, given the turn based nature of these types of games, that it becomes dumb NOT to use them. But I think the real issue with this is it creates a false dichotomy within the game itself, the player when playing, and the community around the game. The common argument of "if it's too strong just don't use it" doesn't really work, even for a single player game, because the game subconsciously or otherwise is DESIGNED with these strategies in mind. For Gemcraft in particular, the endgame super endurance waves are literally not feasible to beat without mana-farming, as monsters gain exponentially more hit points and armor to comparatively less and less mana farther on as the game goes. It is no longer just another tool in your toolbelt to decide how to built your defense, it is a mandatory part of every strategy that the other choices then take actual conscious thought. As such, it pains me to say that they won't be included in my much coveted Dream Gemcraft game, never to be described or quantified.
However, this isn't meant to be a total condemnation of the concept. Obviously, implementation matters more then inspiration; if the mana Gems had a cap (which older Gemcraft games had) or an extremely small return on investment, like it's only possible to get 10% return on a gem even after using it a hundred waves, then yes it would be much more "balanced", but would lean towards uselessness. Technically speaking there has to be some level where the effort and cost-basis is too much and a different effect would be better, it's just more of a mathematical effort then most people are willing to make. Finally; it should also be noted that no matter how well intentioned, balanced, or well-designed you make a game there will always be a "meta" or optimal strategy. That's just the result of human nature. I just find "economy engine building" type best strategies the most boring of all.
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