Cost of Turrets

The more I've been playing (which is a lot), the more I've been wondering if the cost of turrets should be reduced, and I'm wondering what other people's thoughts are.

My main reasoning is, really, how easy it is to take down a turret. A single juiced player can take down multiple turrets (so $500 can cost your team $1k+). A gunner with level 3 passive can take out pretty much any turret in about 3 - 5 shots (a one time $1k makes for a turret buster). Snipers can take out turrets pretty quickly, especially with flak. Assassins and Tanks can blind turrets for easy damaging, etc. Then there's Gapshots / longshots.

To me, the cost of building a turret outweighs its potential use in terms of how fast it can be destroyed. I don't think the answer is to make them tougher to kill (as that, I think would slow down the pace of the game) but to reduce the amount they cost.

That said, I think the turret economy (diversity of deployed turrets) could be improved by just reducing the cost of a single turret - the rocket turret.

As it stands now, investing $1k in a turret that can be killed quite quickly is pretty much a waste of money. Even when I am cash heavy in a game, I rarely bother investing in a rocket turret as I could save the 400 to 800 in cash for juice and be a lot more use to my team then a temporary rocket turret.

Reducing the cost of the rocket turret to be the same as a long-shot, however, could be a good solution. It would increase turret diversity and probably improve team assistance with turrets (frequently when I'm offense, I'll upgrade a turret as I run by). Especially on maps like Grenade III.

Speaking to the money economics (the rate in which I earn cash / the amount of cash I have) in conjunction with the turret economics in the game, I can earn $150 - $300 fast enough to where I can see it being worth investing in an upgraded RocketTurret that costs as much as a Long Shot. Plus the lower initial cost ($75 compared to $200) will ensure a better defended base as your turret diversity increases (a mix of lazer blazer and rocket turrets).

You figure if the average game nets total cash for a player of $2500 - $3500, you're looking at about $166.66 - 233.33 per minute (game of 15 minutes). If you figure that each player upgrades at least one of his skills to level 3, that's $550 spent which could be around 5 minutes of play (or 33% of the match). Factor into that the use of ejectors ($50), bot spawns to push lanes ($100), potential Annihilator use ($250), saving for juice ($500), and upgrading other skills ($150+). The cost to benefit of building a rocket turret that has an exceedingly high potential to get killed is relatively low. Not to mention their position is usually closer to the money ball because those turrets are usually harder to kill at long range (snipers/gunners), meaning the turret is ultimately netting you less cash in bot kills than a less expensive turret (LazeBlazer) placed in a more aggressive position.

Thoughts?

I can understand where your coming from, but alittle part of me wants to say that really, Supports should be keeping those turrets alive. I see what you mean about positioning them further back, and them netting you less cash though. There has to be some sort of money back to warrant the purchase.

I'v built a rocket turret on a turret nub that was constantly under fire by snipers and bots, and i just had to keep healing it, but once i got it to level 2 with level 3 hacking, it could suppress jackbots. Then when i was lucky enough to get it to level 3 (Which is ALOT of money to save in a game) i didnt even have to attempt to heal it, it barely took any damage.

You're a good support then. I hate seeing my team get to supports then the run off to rush the enemy base the moment the game starts. I don't mind one support rushing off with a bunch of gunners/assaults/tanks. Anyhow yes, supports should be keeping the base alive.

This is the way I would play a tank, but I have a different experience. Many times I'll be stuck in the base, forced to heal all six turrets in the base because the opponents keep charging in to destroy them. Often I'll put up a turret, and a few seconds later I'll be destroyed because I went to heal another one. Or I never get to spend money on myself because the turrets are always being destroyed and I have to spend money to make new ones (I always make sure that our base is defended before upgrading my skills). Hacks don't always help because players have found ways to attack turrets outside of their line of sight.

That being said, I might not be the best support, and maybe I'm spending money on the wrong turrets. Or perhaps I should focus on my own upgrades before the turrets.

I can't stand it when I see a whole bunch of supports in our team, thinking that I'm free to be someone else and that the supports can handle defense, then a minute later our moneyball is already down and all of our turrets (the two I put down, and the rocket turrets we start with) are destroyed because the "supports" placed their firebases on the other side of the map and stayed there. Very frustrating.

As a support, what ill try to look for is where the enemy will be when they try to destroy my turrets. On most maps, you learn where the people are going to be, snipers further out, assassins round a corner for shurikens etc, and when i learn where they are when they try to destroy my turrets, thats where ill put a firebase. When i see my firebase is destroyed, i'll get an idea that someone is going after my turrets.

My turrets are like my children lol, you aim for them, ill airstrike you off the map.

Okay. Right now I put my firebase in a high traffic area. I should probably be more defensive. But how do you earn enough money for new turrets?

I don't think he has a problem with one support doing that, it is when 2 or 3 supports do that.

I would not consider having one support man the base at all times a viable solution to costly turrets. Mainly because it's not possible for 1 support to keep all turrets running at one time, and it's easy for a single support to be overwhelmed, even if he's just hiding behind a barrier healing a rocket turret. The benefit for building such an expensive turret just isn't there considering the upkeep and reward involved.

Depends on what you consider defensive. I would say a support who places his turret in a lane that's killing bots is being aggressively defensive, and is probably the best bet. It nets you cash, and kills bots, or weakens them so by the time they get to your base, the remainder of your turrets (or members of your team that just spawned) can pick them off easily.

It's better to build your perimeter farther out, because if they do push, you're giving yourself more ground to give up. If you start at your base, the only place they can push into is your money ball, as opposed to the next bridge, etc. That said, it only works well if your team is decent and pushing, and it does require moving your turret at times.

While it's nice to say it's a Support's job, it also doesn't make them heal any faster. I often use my firebase to defend my base's turrets, but it's easy to outstrip a Support's heal, especially if using AoE in certain placements and especially factoring cost/benefit.

I'm getting rather frustrated playing Support defensively. Between relatively low cash, teammates sniping turrets out from under me, the ease of destruction of most turrets, the recharge on skills, the potential sacrifice of cash by defensive placement of your firebase, etc.., it's more a chore. I could play Animal Crossing if I wanted to simulate Fair Devoirs, and spoilers: I don't.

Worse still is that I usually have another Support on the team. I won't play Support if there's 2 or more, but I frequently have a partner. One who bails when **** goes down or who is too busy hacking my turret to heal the one being destroyed by the gunner. In short, a royal *****.

so maybe it's just a problem that people are pricks, but "That's a Support's job" isn't really a response, it's a "lrn ur roll noob" meme that white washes the situation with an insipid platitude.

No offense.

Lazer blasers, perfect.
Long shots, perfect
Shave ice? Depending on the placement I DO build them, they work well as distractions for bots and have alot of HP
Rockits? Too expensive imho


What I hate, however. Is teammates who just hang around waiting to steal the turrets off you. Barring the support hack, I see teams who the instant you put a turret up they upgrade it immediately locking me out of the investment I put into it

noob you're learn, roll.

None taken, and i didn't mean to come off as saying your playing wrong or anything like that, so my apologies if it did

Nah, just that it kind of hinges on that territory. one of the reasons I wanted to make sure you know I wasn't going after you personally or anything.

Rocket turrets are prohibitively expensive. As a support I don't rack up as much money as say a gunner, so I usually spend my money on the more reasonably priced long, ice, and laser turrets.

Rockets are really more for Blitz then Crossfire. Let's face it, the only time someone is going to come into your base when you have rocket turrets is probably because they're juiced up and about to destroy your 1k investment.

If I ever upgrade a rocket, it's only to level 2, never 3. And that just happens to be because the base already comes with two of them. If I am building my own, they stay at level 1.

It hurts me to watch the rocket turrets I invest so much money on get taken down in a matter of seconds by a juiced up assassin.

Another 360 game that I've played had their own solution to turret prices. In Defense Grid, prices for towers would be along the lines of 100 -> 200 -> 300, instead of the usual 100 -> 200 -> 400 prices tower defense games have. It helps make the top end upgrades more affordable and helps with the question of using quantity of turrets, or quality turrets.

Using a pricing system like this would hardly make a difference for Lazer Blazers, being only $25 less for a full upgrade, and only $75 less for Longshots. ShaveIces would be $100 less total, and RockIts would be $200 less total. RockIts would still be really expensive at level 3, but the cost of investment for them would allow for an extra level 1 RockIt, or a level 3 Lazer Blazer.

Try the search button

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2823

Turrets as they stand right now are largely stupid.

That wasn't really necessary, because that topic ended up being a debate about juice, rather than about the turrets themselves.

I kind of agree with you on the turret issue though. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by that?

Agreed. Rockits are good, but not 600 to reach level 2 good when 175 for a lazer blaser is a much more effective defender. Cost vs reward really doesn't make the rockits worth it when the solution usually means the other team will juice it down. If the cost was adjusted to be somewhere in the 500-700 range for a 0 to level 3 rockit, that would feel about right.


As it stands right now, about 5-10 minutes in that 400 I could use to make a rockit level 2 is usually better spent on juice to burn down the other team's defense and ball. A good offense is a good defense and what not.

Actually I think I covered turrets pretty well in my thread. I mention juice to note how much easier it is to destroy them than it is cost effective to build them. Facts and numbers back up an argument better than opinions.

1) Without hacks most of them are worthless (return fire programming requested).
2) All things considered rocket/ice turrets need more health/armor.
3) Level 3 rocket turrets built near the ball can be completely avoided by flying to the upper ring (for overtime juicing).

I agree you get what you pay for with laser and longshot turrets but the other two need attention.

Heresy. What is this witchcraft of which you speak?