Version 1.3 - Big Balance Update!

As usual, it only took 285309 years, but Version 1.3 is finally here, bringing with it lots of nifty features! We've got Reconnect Support, Ranked Season 2 with a Desync Detector, there's a Same Pick Modifier, and you can pseudo play against replays in Ghost Mode. On top of that, we've got a lengthy list of Balance Changes, Specializations have received some overdue love, as well as numerous fixes and improvements. Enjoy the long list of patch notes below!

RIP Vapor washing machine. In exchange, it's actually useful past Wave 10 now.

[h2]Features[/h2]

Reconnect Support added!
- If you disconnect in the middle of a game, it'll now attempt to reconnect you within a 90 second window.
- In the meantime, for everyone else, the game will be paused, and they'll get a Votekick dialogue, giving everyone a chance to vote for you to stay or get kicked. Obviously, if you don't return within 90 seconds, you'll get kicked anyways.
- To be clear, if you return to the Main Menu, you can't actually get back into the game. This moreso addresses "oh, my internet dropped for a few seconds" or some other temporary disconnect issue.
Ranked Season 2 has begun!
- For now, nothing special has been added. Everyone gets to start from 300 MMR again and work their way back up to the top!
- However, rankings from Season 1 have been preserved.
- There's now new Achievements for going up a Rank. This is retroactive with Season 1, so if you had say 700 MMR in Season 1, you'll get the respective Achievements.
- Additionally, a Desync Detector has been added! If you're in a Ranked Game and a desync is detected, the game will end, and neither player will gain or lose any MMR.
  - For those of you that have experienced Ranked Games in the past where you won but somehow lost MMR, this was the cause.
Same Pick Modifier added! This is Multiplayer only:
- How it works is that people take turns picking the next element. Everyone gets that same element.
- If the player doesn't choose the element by the end of the wave break, it should pick an element at random.
Ghost Mode added!
- On the Leaderboard, when selecting a Replay, you try Ghost Mode instead.
- Doing so will let you play as a ghost, meaning whenever you clear a wave, it won't trigger the next wave's start, but actual players in the replay will. This way, you can pseudo-play against existing replays.
- Note, this only works for FFA replays. You can also access local replays in the Ghost Mode using the Extras menu.

Hopefully, you don't actually see this, but if you do, know that you'll no longer suffer from incorrectly lost Ranked matches.

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

Some of the game's FixedPoint calculations now use Floats:
- This includes Creep HP, Damage Calculations, Gold, and Score Multipliers.
- Most notably, this means that Wave 56+ no longer cuts HP down by a factor of 10, and that Boss Armor now just takes 100% damage from all types. That was our way of masking some annoying technical limitations, but now those limitations are gone, so hooray!
- That said, the game will no longer freeze if you get far enough into the game, particularly in God Mode.
Improved LODs, increasing performance by up to 10%.
Horizontal Upgrading now works for the following:
- Level 2 Single --> Level 2 Dual
- Level 2 Dual --> Level 2 Triple
- Level 3 Single --> Level 3 Dual
When placing a tower or hovering over a tower upgrade, it'll now display the Gold Cost next to the cursor.
- This includes if you have multiple towers selected, or if you're holding Ctrl to max-upgrade towers.
- If you don't have enough gold for it, the text will instead flash red.
You can now select a tower from the Build Row/Tower Table even if you don't have the gold for it. It will now block you when you attempt to actually place the tower.
- This means you can now preview the range of a tower before you have the gold available for it.
In Ranked, if the other player outright quits to the main menu, the game will immediately end.
Speed Score Multiplier has been made more granular and will change by the second. Still the same rate as before.
In-game Timer/Speed Multiplier no longer starts until the first wave starts spawning
Replay Name now mentions the map and mode.
Temple has been made 2-Path by default.
- Its Advanced paths is now 1-Path but it's 20% faster.
Desert has received some changes, both gameplay-wise and visually.
Bloom Level 2 scale reduced by about 15%, should be easier to tell each level apart.

About 6 seconds have been shaved off the path length, there's more useful build locations, and it looks better!

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

Tower Target Priority & Focus Settings from the Tower Customization menu now work properly
- In theory, this was fixed in 1.2.4, but for some people, it wasn't. It should be fixed now, and in the off-chance it still isn't, use the Reset Tower Settings button in that menu.
Fixed Kick Player button disappearing when host changes
Fixed Kick Player being based on join order instead of the current occupant
Fixed an issue where the Sell Value Tooltip would be incorrect when selecting different towers
Fixed an issue where the Challenger & Royalty Achievements wouldn't trigger outside of the FFA Leaderboard.
Fixed placement range indicator differing from range indicator of an existing tower.

Another quality-of-life feature that we can't believe wasn't in the game from the start.

[h2]Balance[/h2]
The majority of these changes can be attributed to community member MinaciousGrace, who's spent a ton of time into improving the balance and testing it out quite thoroughly. Most towers received buffs; a handful of counterbalances were made in the late-game, but overall, the game should be easier. However, in Multiplayer, expect it to also be faster.

As usual with our balance patches, Score Leaderboards have been reset.

[h3]General[/h3]

Cannon Tower AoE increased from 200 to 300
Dual Element Tower cost increased from 500 / 1250 / 3150 to 500 / 1300 / 3300
Level 3 Elemental HP increased by roughly 7%
Shield creeps continue to remain affected by slows while invulnerable
Waves 51 through 55 now scale up at x1.2 HP, up from x1.157
Perfection Score Bonus increased from 10% to 15%
Diminishing Returns reduced from 6% to 5% per stack

[h3]Single Element Towers[/h3]

Light adjusted:
- Damage increased from 110 to 115
- Consecutive damage increased from 4 to 5
Darkness adjusted:
- Damage increased from 270 to 280
- HP removal on bounce increased from 5% to 7.5%
- The on-kill bounce now works twice on Undead, just like Flamethrower & Ethereal.
Water adjusted:
- Bounce damage increased from 40% to 45%
- Bounce range reduced from 125 to 100
Fire damage increased from 27 to 30
Nature adjusted:
- Damage increased from 80 to 85
- Effect duration reduced from 4 to 1 second
- Effect damage multiplier increased from x1.5 to x4
- Effect activation changed to be on-hit instead of on-fire. This means it'll properly get in 3 buffed attacks from a 1 second duration instead of only 2.
Earth adjusted:
- Shockwave damage reduced from 60 to 50
- Shockwave starting AoE increased from 100 to 400

[h3]Dual Element Towers[/h3]

Atom adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 330 to 300
- Consecutive damage growth increased from 12% to 15%
- Stack cap increased from 9 to 11
- Stack carryover reduced from 35% to 25%
Lightning bounce count increased from 4 to 4 / 5 / 7
Poison adjusted:
- Impact damage increased from 100 to 130
- Damage-per-second increased from 50 to 65
- Duration reduced from 20 to 15
Disease adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 110 to 95
- Damage formula changed from (Max HP / Current HP) to [(Max HP / Current HP) + 1]
  - This means against a full health creep, it'll do double damage by default, so overall, this is a buff. It's only a nerf when creeps are below about 9% HP.
Ice damage increased from 775 to 800
Vapor reworked:
- Damage increased from 175 to 1650
- Attack Speed reduced from 1 to 0.66
- AoE reduced from 200 to 0
- Range increased from 750 to 900
- Old Effect: Hits creeps in a line, dealing 10% more damage per creep hit.
- New Effect: Hits all creeps in range. Splits damage equally among all creeps hit. Deals -4% / -0% / +4% more damage for each creep hit.
Infernal adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 900 / 3600 / 14400 to 650 / 2600 / 10400
- Attack speed increased from 1 to 1.5
Solar damage-per-second reduced from 125 to 105
- Note, the change to how Slows affected Shielded creeps drastically increased this tower's late-game power. Even with the damage nerf, it's still stronger in the late-game than before.
Bloom time before it starts recharging rescaled from 1 to 1 / 0.66 / 0.33 seconds
Mushroom reworked:
- Damage increased from 150 to 500
- Attack Speed reduced from 3 to 1
- AoE increased from 200 to 300
- Old Effect: Deals double damage to creeps over 50% HP.
- New Effect: Deals more damage the slower creeps are. Damage Multiplier = Damage
- (300 / Current Movespeed)
Geyser adjusted:
- Damage increased from 950 to 1000
- Ability on-proc AoE increased from 300 to 300 / 350 / 400
Howitzer adjusted:
- Damage increased from 170 to 195
- Max AoE rescaled from 600 to 500 / 600 / 750

[h3]Triple Element Towers[/h3]

Laser adjusted:
- Damage increased from 4800 to 6000
- Damage drop per nearby creep increased from 600 to 1000
- Minimum damage increased from 2400 to 3000
Astral damage increased from 1750 to 1900
Ethereal adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 950 to 850
- Range increased from 1150 to 1500
- Stack duration increased from 4 to 6 seconds
- Stack damage reduced from 100 to 75
Flooding AoE growth rate increased from 12 to 15
Wisp adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 800 to 750
- Reset time increased from 4 to 7 seconds
Money max damage increased from x1.5 / x1.7 to x1.6 / x2
Quake damage increased from 1500 to 2000
Polar adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 1500 to 1000
- Attack Speed increased from 1 to 1.5
- Projectile Speed increased by 25%
- HP Shave reduced from 13% / 26% to 12% / 24%
- HP Shave Duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds
- HP Shave no longer returns health at the end of its duration
Haste speed growth increased from 5% to 6%
Flamethrower adjusted:
- Damage increased from 320 to 400
- Napalm damage increased from 160 to 200
Impulse damage increased from 2300 to 2400
Golem adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 3200 to 2300
- Range increased from 900 to 1150
- Uptime increased from 3 to 4 seconds
Incantation adjusted:
- Amp search AoE reduced from 250 to 200
- Base amp increased from 8% / 16% to 10% / 20%
- Solo amp reduced from 40% / 80% to 32% / 64%
Roots adjusted:
- Damage-per-second reduced from 150 to 100
- Attack speed increased from 1 to 1.5
Muck adjusted:
- Damage reduced from 950 to 650
- Attack speed increased from 1 to 1.5

Numerous builds that sucked before are now viable! Plus there's Horizontal Upgrading to expand possible build paths even more.

[h2]Specializations[/h2]
Numerous out-of-date tooltips have been updated, with a bunch more updated for consistent wording. Localization for these tooltip updates is still behind, but we'll address it in a hotfix soon. Below are the Specializations that received actual changes.

Darkness Spec 1 damage increased from +30% to +35%
Darkness Spec 2 HP Removal increased from 10% to 12.5%
Water Spec 1 bounce range reduced from 500 to 300
Water Spec 2 bounce damage reduced from 80% to 75%
Nature Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Damage boost increased to 100% for 3 seconds.
- New: Damage boost increased to 700% for 1 second.
Earth Spec 1 damage increased from -100% to -75%
Atom Spec 2 damage gain per hit increased from 25% to 30%
Lightning Spec 2 bounces rescaled from 8 to 6 / 8 / 10
Poison Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: AoE reduced to 0, but deals 150 / 600 / 2400 damage-per-second for 14 seconds.
- New: AoE reduced to 0. Damage-per-second increased by 150%.
Poison Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Deals 30 / 120 / 480 damage-per-second for 30 seconds.
- New: Damage-per-second reduced by 40%. Duration increased to 35 seconds.
Vapor Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Damage bonus per creep increased to 13%.
- New: Damage reduced by 40%. Bonus damage per creep increased to 6% / 9% / 12%.
Vapor Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Attack speed reduced to 0.5, but range increased to 1150.
- New: Range increased to 1500. Bonus damage per creep reduced to -9% / -6% / -3%.
Solar Spec 1 damage-per-second reduced from 80 / 320 / 1280 to 75 / 300 / 1200
Solar Spec 2 damage-per-second reduced from 250 / 1000 / 4000 to 210 / 840 / 3360
Infernal Spec 2 bonus damage within 750 Range reduced from +30% to +25%
Mushroom Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Damage increased by 150%, but it has 0 AoE.
- New: Damage increased by 100%. AoE reduced to 100.
Mushroom Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Damage increased by 200%, and AoE increased to 250, but attack speed reduced to 1.
- New: Damage reduced by 40%. Primary target is slowed by 10% / 20% / 30% for 1 second.
Bloom Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Range reduced to 600, but AoE increased to 200.
- New: AoE reduced to 0. Attack speed gain delay reduced to 0.15 seconds.
Bloom Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Max attack speed increased to 500%, but decays at a rate of 50% while firing.
- New: Max attack speed increased to 7.5. Loses 1 attack speed per second while attacking.
Ethereal Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Stack damage reduced by 50 / 200, but Stack Duration increased to 9 seconds.
- New: Stack damage reduced by 40%. Stack duration increased to 12 seconds.
Ethereal Spec 2 stack duration increased from 3 to 6 seconds
Wisp Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: AoE increased to 550, Minimum AoE increased to 300.
- New: AoE increased to 650. Max damage reduced to 340%. Minimum AoE increased to 400.
Flamethrower Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Attack Speed reduced to 1.00, but AoE increased to 300 and Range increased to 900.
- New: Napalm Damage increased by 250%. Napalm AoE reduced to 200.
Impulse Spec 1 range reduced from 1800 to 1750
Impulse Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Damage increased by 25%. The closer the target, the greater the damage.
- New: Damage Multiplier = 1000 / Distance Traveled.
- How it worked before was it dealt up to 150% damage up-close, but only down to like 80% damage at max range. Now it deals up to 250% damage up-close but down to 50% damage at max range.
Money Spec 2 bonus damage based on gold increased from 20% / 40% to 25% / 50%
Nova Spec 1 adjusted:
- Old: Range increased to 1150. Slow reduced to 10% / 20%.
- New: Damage reduced by 30%. Range increased to 1150.
Polar Spec 1 HP Removal increased from 18% / 36% to 25% / 50%
Polar Spec 2 adjusted:
- Old: Duration increased to 30 seconds, and it returns none of the health that was removed.
- New: Damage increased by 100%. AoE reduced to 0. HP Removal increased to 18% / 36%.

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Once again, a patch that we thought was only going to contain a few things ended up being a monumental release with a whole bunch of things. And we still have more things to add. In the next update, Version 1.4, we'll finally be adding 15 New Quad Element Towers to the game! We've already previewed two of the new towers, namely Railgun & Obelisk, with more previews coming as we get closer to a release later in November.

There's a few Quads in this shot that haven't been shown in a preview yet...