Am I the only one who is annoyed about the "mage in front at the beginning of the game" meta?

[101001000010]

I just think this meta is just pure selfishness, especially in double-income mode. Once someone places it down at the beginning tile, they just gain so many coins at the start from killing all the farming mobs, while the other teammates get none of the shares. Even if they use their swords, that man or woman who placed the mage in front will always be the richest person in Babylon (assuming that they know how to max their goldmine the fastest). The start of the game has basically turned into "who can load the chunks the fastest and secure a spot for their level 3 mage at the beginning of the track." However, this is just a minor reason why I'm annoyed by this strategy. After all, someone does have to take the initiative to plant an early level 3 mage. What I hate about this popular strategy is that it completely conflicts with my ideal strategy.

My ideal early game strategy is pretty simple. It revolves around one crucial element: do not kill the farming mobs immediately. Rather, kill them near the end of the track. The opponent would not gain xp for a certain amount of time, preventing them from upgrading their goldmine in that certain time frame. If the track is long enough to delay the xp gains, the opponent may only be able to send a partial wave of zombies to farm xp. The whole purpose of this strategy is to lessen the number of coins of the opposing team and to delay potential rushes. The strategy is extremely effective in double-income mode.

Out of the hundreds of games I've played, I've only had 3-6 games in which my team actually executed the strategy. However, I do understand. Everyone has their own strategy. It just happens that the dominant meta prevents me from executing my own strategy.

TL;DR: I'm triggered that I can't execute my own strategy because the current meta-strategy prevents me from doing so.

 

[ellamaree8]

I just think this meta is just pure selfishness, especially in double-income mode. Once someone places it down at the beginning tile, they just gain so many coins at the start from killing all the farming mobs, while the other teammates get none of the shares. Even if they use their swords, that man or woman who placed the mage in front will always be the richest person in Babylon (assuming that they know how to max their goldmine the fastest). The start of the game has basically turned into "who can load the chunks the fastest and secure a spot for their level 3 mage at the beginning of the track." However, this is just a minor reason why I'm annoyed by this strategy. After all, someone does have to take the initiative to plant an early level 3 mage. What I hate about this popular strategy is that it completely conflicts with my ideal strategy.

My ideal early game strategy is pretty simple. It revolves around one crucial element: do not kill the farming mobs immediately. Rather, kill them near the end of the track. The opponent would not gain xp for a certain amount of time, preventing them from upgrading their goldmine in that certain time frame. If the track is long enough to delay the xp gains, the opponent may only be able to send a partial wave of zombies to farm xp. The whole purpose of this strategy is to lessen the number of coins of the opposing team and to delay potential rushes. The strategy is extremely effective in double-income mode.

Out of the hundreds of games I've played, I've only had 3-6 games in which my team actually executed the strategy. However, I do understand. Everyone has their own strategy. It just happens that the dominant meta prevents me from executing my own strategy.

TL;DR: I'm triggered that I can't execute my own strategy because the current meta-strategy prevents me from doing so.

I do understand where you're coming from! At the beginning of a game, I always think "Whoever owns the first mage controls the game", because this person is getting more income than the rest of the team combined and can pretty much control the defence and attack strategy, at least in the beginning.

However I'm definitely not a fan of the strategy you prefer. I completely understand it's benefits, but it's very hard to achieve unless the whole team is on the same page prior to the start of the game, otherwise you will have someone try to get that first mage up at the spawn point of the map.

The only thing I can suggest is you use this strategy when you're playing in a party!

P.S: I used to think that mage is the most important tower to put down at that start because you can collect all that initial coin, BUT, another (super under-appreciated) tower: Quake, can pretty much give you a similar amount of coins if placed right at the beginning also. So if you want to start earning the big $$ but someone has bet you to that first mage, place a quake!

 

[Deleted member 294498]

I just think this meta is just pure selfishness, especially in double-income mode. Once someone places it down at the beginning tile, they just gain so many coins at the start from killing all the farming mobs, while the other teammates get none of the shares. Even if they use their swords, that man or woman who placed the mage in front will always be the richest person in Babylon (assuming that they know how to max their goldmine the fastest). The start of the game has basically turned into "who can load the chunks the fastest and secure a spot for their level 3 mage at the beginning of the track." However, this is just a minor reason why I'm annoyed by this strategy. After all, someone does have to take the initiative to plant an early level 3 mage. What I hate about this popular strategy is that it completely conflicts with my ideal strategy.

My ideal early game strategy is pretty simple. It revolves around one crucial element: do not kill the farming mobs immediately. Rather, kill them near the end of the track. The opponent would not gain xp for a certain amount of time, preventing them from upgrading their goldmine in that certain time frame. If the track is long enough to delay the xp gains, the opponent may only be able to send a partial wave of zombies to farm xp. The whole purpose of this strategy is to lessen the number of coins of the opposing team and to delay potential rushes. The strategy is extremely effective in double-income mode.

Out of the hundreds of games I've played, I've only had 3-6 games in which my team actually executed the strategy. However, I do understand. Everyone has their own strategy. It just happens that the dominant meta prevents me from executing my own strategy.

TL;DR: I'm triggered that I can't execute my own strategy because the current meta-strategy prevents me from doing so.

It's a strategy for players to earn money, you always can place a ice-tower next to it. Even though, tower defense is a ''team'' game and it should be played like this!

 

[MrTommy]

When i play TD i place archer towers on the 5x5 at the beginning so i can claim those spots for later and place 5x5 towers there and that is a tatctic, but if a new player places towers on the wrong spots or don't upgarde them after you told them,that is annoying yes

 

[Lucavon]

My friends and I frequently use a strategy that's similar to the meta, although we came up with it ourselves, instead of looking at what others do.
We're usually 3-4 people, so we really don't care who has the most gold, but I see how it can be annoying if you play solo.

Our strategy is:
Fire and ice at the start, kill the early waves. Once we have goldmine II (1 upgrade), we start placing more fire and archer towers throughout the track, occasionally a quake tower, too.
At that point, we send only spiders, as that's the most efficient mob (gold:xp ratio) in the early game. We do this until we have solid goldmines, at which point we create what we refer to as "kill-zones". Long strips of turret towers (L3 with the bounce upgrade path), ice and archer IV (4 arrow path) on the other side. We usually have 2-3 zones, depending on the map. This protects us from any flying mobs, as well as spiders (mage towers are sprinkled in). If anything unexpected comes through, we use meteor potions to destroy it.

Once our zones are complete, we start preparing the spawn area - tons of sorcerer towers, permanent poison, quake and artillery towers. This will take care of any ground troops coming in and damage flying ones, too (poison). While doing this, we are still sending spiders regularly to gain XP.
At this point, we upgrade everything to the max. Some of us start sending skeletons for XP once this point is reached, but I prefer level 3 spiders. From that point on, most XP goes into mob upgrades - we usually coordinate so one person takes witches and slimes, while the others upgrade blazes. While doing that, we fill up the leftover spaces in our zones with a mix of quake, sorcerer, zeus and poison towers.

We then proceed to level all of our mobs up to the max. Shortly before or once Armageddon begins, we send our witches, slimes and blazes, after which we throw tons of speed potions to get our troops past the defenses as quickly as possible.

Because there are usually 3-4 of us, we can speed the mobs up pretty much constantly, allowing them to skip the majority of the enemy team's defenses.

We have a win rate of about 80% (rough estimate, I didn't actually do any maths) with this strategy, although we frequently play against beginners, since there's no matchmaking. When we play against experienced players, our win rate drops to about 60-70%. We actually met someome using your strategy once, and we still defeated them. I can't tell you the details, though, I don't remember, hehe.

 

[TheZigbot9000]

Incorrect Tower Placement, and Meta Strats that everyone follows because they've seen other players do it. These reasons is why Tower Defense is not as popular as the other games. It's impossible to work with random players in this game.

With games like Team Eggwars and Skywars, you may be forced to work with a team but you have the independence to execute your own strategy. You could work as a team or you could completely forget about them and take on other teams completely alone if you see fit. With Tower Defense this is not possible. There's little to no independence in this game. You're forced to work with your team whether you like it or not. What strategy they execute on the field first is now the strategy you're stuck with. Tower placements being the key factor. One skilled tower defense player who knows what he's doing can single-handedly beat a team of 4 players, one of them being a player who is also skilled at the game but has 3 other players that, either has no idea what they're are doing or a troller that intentionally ruins the game for the LOLs. This is the pretty much the only game on CubeCraft where having a full team of players is sometimes more of a detriment than a benefit, which should never be the case. I like Tower Defense, but tbh there's more certainty for luck in a classic box of chocolates.

 

[LeCastel]

Out of the hundreds of games I've played, I've only had 3-6 games in which my team actually executed the strategy. However, I do understand. Everyone has their own strategy. It just happens that the dominant meta prevents me from executing my own strategy.

Incorrect Tower Placement, and Meta Strats that everyone follows because they've seen other players do it. These reasons is why Tower Defense is not as popular as the other games. It's impossible to work with random players in this game.

This is why Tower Defense needs a solo (or at the very least doubles) mode.

Yes, starving the enemies from xp early is a great tactic, but it sure as hell isn't gonna work with a bunch of randoms in your team. Nearly all issues with the game could be solved with a solo mode; I would gladly take it over a content/balance update.

 

[ChasingRainbows]

The "don't kill enemies until the end of the track" kinda sucks (at least in double income, which I always vote for and virtually always end up playing) because it's actually easier to do an early rush against, as unintuitive as it might sound. By the time they start killing your mobs, you'll have enough exp for leveled skeles, blazes, witches, leveled spiders basically right away and they'll take little if any damage on most of the path.

Also, when it comes to any video game, the meta is the meta for a reason. If there was a better way, then that would be the meta. Another problem that is inherent to minecraft minigames* is the lack of voice chat, text chat only allows for limited coordination at best.

* - when playing with teams of strangers. Solo and playing with friends are the exceptions.

 

[Maddog465]

A way to get around that meta is to place 4 archer towers near the front near that mage tower so that the mage tower damages them and the arrow towers kill them earning you the money and roughly half the time half and half between you and the mage tower, you can then upgrade these towers later on providing 4 explosive towers at the front early on for a very strong defence.

 

[11Ls]

xp drying, starving, delaying, etc is very underrated. Leaderboard-climbers often forfeit games if you do this against them. :)

 

[11Ls]

xp drying, starving, delaying, etc is very underrated. Leaderboard-climbers often forfeit games if you do this against them. :)

Shoutout to the 6 stack that forfeited the match