Element TD 2 News

I know you're looking to Version 1.00 everything that comes with it, but we've made the decision to push it back another week... again. Chapter 4 is genuinely almost finished; however, it's a little unpolished, there's some stuff on the presentation end that needs to be fixed up, and we still have a handful of bugs to iron out. We'd rather it release as a polished product rather than something that has to be hotfixed repeatedly after-the-fact.

The new missions in Chapter 4 are more complex and layered than ever before.


Once again, we apologize for yet another delay and bad time estimates. This is the last delay, we're really close to the finish line. Just one more sprint!

One of the missions will be doubling up as our 4th Co-op Map - Tundra!

Over the past few months, we've been trying to fix the stability of Ranked Mode, and although we mostly got it in the recent patch, people are still reporting more and more disconnects. We think we've figured out the cause, but in order to confirm if we've fixed it, we need a lot of people.

On Saturday, March 20th at 4pm GMT, we'll be running a bunch of Ranked Games on our alpha branch. To join, check the #testers channel on our Discord, and we'll coordinate it from there. Also, you'll have the opportunity to try out Version 1.00's balance, which is nearly locked in at this point (short of someone finding something as abusable as the current Atom Tower).

It's been a long road since the start of Early Access (longer than we initially expected), but we're finally approaching a close. On Friday, March 26th, Element TD 2 will go into Official Release, and the price will increase to $14.99. Additionally, we'll jump the version straight to 1.00. In that release, you can expect the following:

• Chapter 4 of the Campaign, containing the final 7 Missions
  
• New Achievements based off of Chapter 4
  
• 4th Co-op Map
• Balance Changes (we know about Atom, don't worry)
  
• Both Score & Ranked Leaderboards resetting
  
• More Cosmetics
• Various optimizations, bug fixes, and quality-of-life improvements as per usual
  

The majority of 1.00's balance changes are up and ready for testing already on the alpha branch - if you'd like to try it out early, check the pinned post of the #testers channel on our Discord.

Additionally, the first four missions of Chapter 4 should be playable this coming Monday or Tuesday, with the rest coming in the lead-up to release. They'll be a little rough around the edges, but we'd appreciate it if some of you could try it early and give us feedback, particularly on how it's balanced.

Next week, we'll do a more thorough patch preview, particularly what you can expect from Chapter 4 and some of those balance notes. Till next time!

Elevation changes? In my Element TD? What sacrilege is this?

Believe it or not, it's been exactly one year since Element TD 2 entered Early Access! Since then, the game's content and replayability have about quintupled, we've grown a pretty active Discord Server, and we've gotten enough players to have regular games every day! And now, with this last patch, we're finally adding Teams & Co-op Leaderboards, among a bunch of other fixes (Ranked Mode in particular).

Without further ado, let's get onto to Version 0.66's patch notes!


[h2]Features[/h2]

• Team & Co-op Leaderboards have finally been added to the game!
  • You'll notice, with more players, that you'' see numbers higher than 3 for each element. This is the totals of everyone's picks.
    
• A Focus Toggle button has been added, next to the tower targeting options. Hotkey is set to V.
  • Focus On: The tower will shoot creeps until they're dead or out-of-range before deciding its next target.
    
  • Focus Off: The tower will decide its next target on each attack.
    
• 3 Cosmetics added:
  • New Builder: Reaper
    
  • New Wings: Gaia Wings
    
  • New Hat: Dino Hat
    

It tooks a while, but you can finally top the Co-op Leaderboards with Money Towers! Wait, where'd all these entries come from?


[h2]Improvements[/h2]

• Ranked games only become valid once both players load in (as in, get past the loading screen, and the wave timer starts counting down). If either player disconnects prior to that, it is no longer considered a loss. The other player will receive a "Game Abandoned" message and be booted back to main menu.
  
• Ranked MMR search range increased from 225 to 300.
  
• Ranked Notification window increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
  
• Game Notifications can now be disabled in Singleplayer in-game when paused.
  
• War Mode now has its own Wave Order, removing Composite and replacing Bulky with Regeneration.
  
• War Mode now spawns roughly 60% more creeps than before, increasing the frantic pacing of the mode.
  • The total bounty has been adjusted to be roughly 20% more than before.
    
• Achievements have been tabbed out for improved organization.
  
• The In Good Health achievement has been removed (for now).
  
• The Greed is Good achievement now requires you to reach 50,000 Unspent Gold in a Very Hard game prior to Wave 55.
  
• In Singleplayer, there is now a red text warning that Achievements are disabled if you're playing on Easy Difficulty.
  
• A player leaving the lobby will no longer unready everyone.
  
• Targeting Options now have new icons to distinguish them easier.
  
• Ping in multiplayer now has a 3 second cooldown.
  
• Pressing Insert now zooms in
  
• Pressing Delete now zooms out
  
• Pressing any of the camera control buttons while you have the in-game chat open will no longer move the camera around
  
• Removed the Utility button from the Tower Table.
  
• Minor optimizations have been made.
  
• Zoom/Scroll/Rotate increments scale at 5% instead of 10%.
  
• Fixed Brightness slider not working
  
• Added Saturation slider
  
• Added Bloom On/Off toggle
  
• Updated and optimized visuals on Forest

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where some players could load into the game before other players, resulting in disconnects on game start.
  
• Ranked Mode should be much more stable than before.
  • If you're still running into disconnect shenanigans, please let us know.
    
• Fixed a bug where pressing T to open the Targeting menu would block your input unless you pressed T or 1-6.
  
• In the Damage Overview, any damage that could past 0 HP is no longer counted.
  
• Tower healing in War Mode is now added as damage to the Damage Overview, instead of negating it.
  
• Pressing F9 while a tower is selected will no longer cause the builder to be on while the UI is off and vice versa.
  
• Fixed an issue where you wouldn't be given a Shop Point after leveling up.
  
• Fixed the Boss Score text not being centered
  
• Fixed the Win Streak achievement not having a description.
  

Gave a little bit of love to Forest, should look a bit cleaner in general.


[h2]Campaign[/h2]

• Fixed a number of incorrect Specialization tooltips
  
• Tweaked the message in Mission 1 so that players understand they have to sell to relocate.
  
• Toned down the boss' HP in Mission 18.
  
• Updated a number of Campaign Specializations:
  • Water Splash (#1) reduces range to 750 instead of reducing bounce damage
    
  • Earth Ground Breaker (#1) reduces damage to 0 while doubling Shockwave damage
    
  • Earth Distant Rumble (#2) slows attack speed to 0.66, triples damage, and disables the shockwave
    
  • Geyser Unstable (#1) damage is reduced by 30%, but the ability triggers every 3 attacks
    
  • Geyser Mega Burst (#2) ability no longer hits in 300 AoE, but instead deals 300% damage
    
  • Poison Pestilence (#1) now has 0 AoE but deals 125 / 500 / 2000 damage-per-second
    
  • Bloom Thorned Rose (#1) reduces range to 750 but increases AoE to 200
    
  • Bloom Longevity (#2) increases the max damage bonus to 500% but increases the decay rate to 50%
    
  • Disease Long Decay (#1) reduces damage by 20% instead of 15%
    
  • Disease Instant Decay (#2) now increases damage by 25% but reduces range to 750
    
  • Atom High Capacity (#1) reduces attack speed to 1, but it retains 75% of its stacks on switching creeps
    
  • Windstorm High Winds (#1) increases the duration to 10 seconds but reduces the slow to 10% / 20%
    
  • Money Pay Day (#2) increases the unspent gold damage bonus to 20% / 40%
    
  • Flamethrower Quick-Fire (#2) duration increased from 5 to 10 seconds
    

That's it for Version 0.66, the final patch of Early Access! Well, other than hotfixes. Up next, we have the Official Release, as we jump forward to Version 1.00! Though, it's going to take a tad bit longer than expected...


[h2]We need one more week[/h2]
The release date for the official launch of Element TD 2 has been pushed back a week, from March 19th to March 26th. We apologize for the minor delay, but we need it to give the last chapter a proper quality pass. These last 7 missions are pretty lengthy, with some hefty surprises in store. We'll be doing a preview in mid-March, so look forward to that!