0.65 Preview - We're Balancing the Game. Again.
Over the course of Element TD's 16 year existence, there's a handful of concepts we've tried to hold on to. Things that were iconic in the original and would still be recognizable, even now. However, some things are just inherently unbalanced by design, and until we let them go, this game will never be balanced, resulting in a lopsided multiplayer experience. Specifically:
In the upcoming Version 0.65 Balance Patch, we'll finally be addressing those points and more. Read on for the full preview!
[h3]No More Fixing Mistakes[/h3]
Life Tower has been in a spot for a while where it's broken for a specific build, and horrible for everything else. Frankly, this is just bad balance. Also, the way it can be used to "fix your mistakes" makes it frustrating to play against. Using them on Co-op made it kind of easy as well.
Life will be receiving a new effect:
[h3]No More Easy Gold Advantage[/h3]
Meanwhile, Money Tower fits into almost any build, and nets you so much extra gold you can spam it like crazy, and you'll still have more gold than everyone else. Technically, this one could be nerfed, but if we did, it'd end up in the same spot as Life where it works fine for one build and garbage for everything else.
Money will also be receiving a new effect:
[h3]Income Now Comes with a Cost[/h3]
And on the topic of more free money, the Income Upgrade is getting replaced. Currently, you can just get this upgrade and get a major gold advantage over everyone else for no downside. Again, we could just nerf the value, but... same issue as the above two cases.
So instead, we're replacing it with Extra Creeps, which will spawn 6 / 12 more creeps per wave. If you manage to kill them decently, you do get considerably more gold than before, but it carries a big risk, especially in Multiplayer. Even in Singleplayer, it'll take longer to clear those creeps, slowing you down and reducing your Speed Score Multiplier.
[h3]RIP Buy/Sell Abuse with Arrows & Cannons[/h3]
We've long contemplated this one, but we're finally doing it. Arrow & Cannon Towers will no longer sell for almost their full value and will be 80% sell, just like everything else. In exchange, their damage has been dramatically improved.
For anyone that relied on buy/selling these towers in the first quarter of the game to cheese your way into certain rush builds, that will no longer work. We're aware that this will change the early game considerably for some folks. Frankly, we should've made this change much sooner in development.
Just to be clear though, they still sell for 100% in Random, just like all other towers.
[h3]More Changes[/h3]
[h3]A Fancy New Feature[/h3]
We've had a bunch of people request this feature, and it's finally happening. We're actually adding an in-game Damage Tracker. As your towers deal damage, you'll see a little chart on the right tallying everything up, displaying the damage from your top ten tower types. You'll be able to switch between Total Damage and Per Wave.
Over time, we'll have other ways to improve this feature. And as usual, expect a number of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.
In conclusion, if you relied heavily on specific unbalanced towers or Buy/Sell Abuse (in Pick), you'll have to relearn the game to some extent. To that end, I'd like to apologize that we didn't make some of these changes sooner. However, if you didn't rely on any of those, the game should be easier overall.
Version 0.65 will be releasing sometime next week! If you'd like to try out these changes early, hop onto our Discord and check the pinned post in the #testers channel. The values listed above miiight shift a little bit, but otherwise, it's pretty close to where they'll end up. So far, the testing experience for this patch has been largely positive, despite all the big changes, so look forward to it!
- Life Tower
- Money Tower
- The darn Income Upgrade (formerly the Interest Upgrade)
- And in Pick, the ability to cheese the early game with Arrows & Cannons, resulting in dumb rush builds that can't be countered
In the upcoming Version 0.65 Balance Patch, we'll finally be addressing those points and more. Read on for the full preview!
[h3]No More Fixing Mistakes[/h3]
Life Tower has been in a spot for a while where it's broken for a specific build, and horrible for everything else. Frankly, this is just bad balance. Also, the way it can be used to "fix your mistakes" makes it frustrating to play against. Using them on Co-op made it kind of easy as well.
Life will be receiving a new effect:
- Life renamed to Bloom
- Attack speed increased from 0.66 to 1.5
- Damage reduced from 1250 / 5000 / 20000 to 500 / 2000 / 8000
- New Effect: When it's not attacking, its damage grows by 20% per second, up to max of 250%. While attacking, its damage drops by 30% per second.
[h3]No More Easy Gold Advantage[/h3]
Meanwhile, Money Tower fits into almost any build, and nets you so much extra gold you can spam it like crazy, and you'll still have more gold than everyone else. Technically, this one could be nerfed, but if we did, it'd end up in the same spot as Life where it works fine for one build and garbage for everything else.
Money will also be receiving a new effect:
- Money renamed to Greed
- Attack speed increased from 0.66 to 1
- Damage reduced from 5500 / 22000 to 3200 / 12800
- New Effect: Gains damage equal to 15% / 30% of your Unspent Gold
[h3]Income Now Comes with a Cost[/h3]
And on the topic of more free money, the Income Upgrade is getting replaced. Currently, you can just get this upgrade and get a major gold advantage over everyone else for no downside. Again, we could just nerf the value, but... same issue as the above two cases.
So instead, we're replacing it with Extra Creeps, which will spawn 6 / 12 more creeps per wave. If you manage to kill them decently, you do get considerably more gold than before, but it carries a big risk, especially in Multiplayer. Even in Singleplayer, it'll take longer to clear those creeps, slowing you down and reducing your Speed Score Multiplier.
[h3]RIP Buy/Sell Abuse with Arrows & Cannons[/h3]
We've long contemplated this one, but we're finally doing it. Arrow & Cannon Towers will no longer sell for almost their full value and will be 80% sell, just like everything else. In exchange, their damage has been dramatically improved.
For anyone that relied on buy/selling these towers in the first quarter of the game to cheese your way into certain rush builds, that will no longer work. We're aware that this will change the early game considerably for some folks. Frankly, we should've made this change much sooner in development.
Just to be clear though, they still sell for 100% in Random, just like all other towers.
[h3]More Changes[/h3]
- Boss Waves will now work the same as all other waves in Multiplayer - whoever clears it first starts the next wave for everyone.
- Wave Timers are now 3 seconds across the board, regardless of the difficulty. This means towers like Haste and Earth can't both push the wave and stay at max power.
- Playing on Random will reduce Wave Timers by 3 seconds, meaning they're instant.
- Playing on Random will reduce Wave Timers by 3 seconds, meaning they're instant.
- Total Bounty up through Wave 55 has been increased by roughly 10%.
- HP Scaling has been adjusted to be about 5% higher by Wave 55.
- Build Times increased by 0.25 seconds for all towers and upgrades. This is mainly noticeable for Buy/Sell in Random.
- The effects of Level 1 Support Debuffs are roughly 50% stronger (ie 10% --> 15%).
- The cost of Level 4 Singles/Periodic are reduced from 15000 to 14000 gold.
- Wave Order has been adjusted for Waves 1 through 9.
- Various buffs, most notably Periodic Tower
- Various nerfs, most notably Haste Tower
[h3]A Fancy New Feature[/h3]
We've had a bunch of people request this feature, and it's finally happening. We're actually adding an in-game Damage Tracker. As your towers deal damage, you'll see a little chart on the right tallying everything up, displaying the damage from your top ten tower types. You'll be able to switch between Total Damage and Per Wave.
Over time, we'll have other ways to improve this feature. And as usual, expect a number of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.
In conclusion, if you relied heavily on specific unbalanced towers or Buy/Sell Abuse (in Pick), you'll have to relearn the game to some extent. To that end, I'd like to apologize that we didn't make some of these changes sooner. However, if you didn't rely on any of those, the game should be easier overall.
Version 0.65 will be releasing sometime next week! If you'd like to try out these changes early, hop onto our Discord and check the pinned post in the #testers channel. The values listed above miiight shift a little bit, but otherwise, it's pretty close to where they'll end up. So far, the testing experience for this patch has been largely positive, despite all the big changes, so look forward to it!