Mainframe Defenders News

Anniversary Update: Other improvements.

Hello everyone, It's been a while since the last dev diary. The Anniversary Update is almost done, and today I would like to tell you about some of the miscellaneous changes it will bring.



Some of the notable changes include:
- You can now rename your units and assign individual colors to them.
- New player mech: Synapse. Available right from the beginning. This little guy more or less a walking squad upgrade.
- Temporary upgrade chests. New strategic tile. You can upgrade your units with extra move range or status effects cleanse until the end of the mission.
- Immobilize items nerfed severely to no longer be able to lock enemies in place indefinitely. Still should be a very good 'panic button'.
- Broadsword has Immobilize and does not have a huge CD. It is prone to overheat though. Maybe a bit OP, but we'll see how that will turn out =)
- Javelin and Brazier have a new ability: bonus damage depending on your current heat.
- Laser Cannon, Horus, and Rapier have a new ability: stacking damage bonus. Each time they are fired, they gain a bit of damage up to a maximum.
- Crucible now applies part of your current heat on the attack.
- Abolisher now deals insane amounts of damage, but has a huge CD and applies heat just by having it equipped.
- Improved Sensor now provides an additional bonus during enemy turns. This should buff return fire builds.
- Couple of talents reshuffle. Mechanic + Oppressor Internal Damage combo is gone.

The update is basically done, now it is time for the translations, balancing, and bug testing. As soon as this stuff is done, I'll push the update.

Hello and welcome to another dev diary for the Mainframe Defenders anniversary update. If you've played Mainframe Defenders you probably know that it suffers from the "inverse difficulty curve" syndrome. This basically means that the first missions will be the most difficult ones, and then you'll breeze past the rest of T1. Then, at the beginning of T2 the difficulty spikes again, probably ruining your run. This is what a new upgrade system is designed to elevate.

Basically, every enemy has a chance to have an additional item. That chance increases as you progress through the tier, and scales with the difficulty. So far the upgrades are:
1. +50% bonus damage.
2. +10/15/20 armor (depending on tier)
3. +30/40/50 hull (depending on tier)
4. -50% status effects damage.
5. 50 damage cap from any source.
6. 10/15/20 heat applied per shot.



This will also help to boost the difficulty for the final mission, where you can expect 100% of units to have upgrades on Hard difficulty.

Since those upgrades act very similar to the Enhancer enemy, the latter was removed from the game. The upgrade system recognizes the items an enemy already has and avoids stacking items. For example, if the enemy already has -50% status effects damage, the upgrade system will exclude -50% status effects damage from the potential upgrade items pool for this unit.

I've also added the icon to enemy units to indicate that they've received an upgrade and to draw players' attention. And the last thing - the upgrade system is entirely optional. You can turn it off for your run if the challenge is too high.

Hello, this is ShiftyCode. It is time for the next dev diary for the anniversary 1.3 update. Even though the player builds are at the heart of the game, those builds would be pointless without some fun enemies. And the enemies can be a bit lacking if you've mastered the game. Some enemies did not create enough threat, even under the right circumstances. There are also some rather pointless enemies that have to be reworked, replaced, or removed. For example, spiders are pretty pointless. They barely pose a threat and die to everything.
But the main reason for those changes is to partially address abuse builds. Every enemy can still be countered, but your squad needs to be well-balanced in the types of damage it provides =)
So there is a list of changes so far:

Fundamental changes:
Status effects:
- Status effects mechanics changed: some status effects can now have a set amount of turns before expiration. This solves the issue of player mechs having 10 stacks of "Propulsion Damaged" and limping along for the rest of the mission. The duration is refreshed upon adding new stacks though!
- Propulsion Damaged and Interference now only lasts 3 turns, regardless of stack amount.
- Corrupted Data rework. It lasts for 2 turns now, but prevents any healing and can't be cleansed. This gives this status effect a unique place in the game, adding a new threat type.
- Damaged Sensor rework. Lasts 2 turns and limits the max damage from weapons. Crit builds, beware =D!
- New status effect: Unstable Current. Lasts 2 turns and reduces weapon damage by 5 per stack. It is introduced as a proper active counter to burst fire builds.
- New status effect: Lingering Heat. Applies a minor amount of heat (per stack, maybe?), but can't be cleaned at all. Still working on the numbers for this one =D
- Player units utilize Improved Interference that cuts damage by 50%.

Enemies:
- Dominator Armor. This armor sets a limit on how much damage the owner can take in a single instance. This counters single crit shot builds and mass corrosion, but leaves the unit vulnerable to other builds.
- Nullifiers, be gone! There is no complete status effect immunity for enemies, only partial. New Isolated Internals item cuts 50% of any status effects damage. This should be enough to discourage players from focusing the wrong target, yet will allow finishing a wounded Sentinel with status effects.
- Pretorians now have the aforementioned Dominator Armor and got the T2 variant.
- Armored Spiders and Suppressors have Isolated Internals to make them tankier against status effects.
- Adaptive armor (used by Bulwarks and Suppressors) now applies Unstable Current to the attackers, countering burst fire more effectively than before.
- Suppressors lost the ability to apply Interference.
- Orions now apply Unstable Current and Lingering Heat on the attack. They've got more armor, and apply heat to the attackers.
- Devastators have fancy Dominator Armor and increase main gun damage by 1 each turn. Featuring a new T3 model as well.
- Overlord applies Interference on attacks and has status effects damage reduction.
- Operators lost armor.
- Assailant has 50% status effect damage reduction.
- Spiders, enhancers, Hive and Sharpshooter removed, for now. At least until I can rework them.

This is not a complete list of changes. I am currently testing the game extensively in order to make sure those changes will make the game more fun =)
Next time, I will talk about a fancy new system that will replace Enhancers.

Thanks for your attention and see you next time!

Hello, this is ShiftyCode, and today I would like to talk a bit about the future updates for the game. Thanks to your feedback I was able to better understand some of the issues the game has. Which was great, because when you playtest your game for hundreds of hours, it can become quite difficult to even remember why your game is fun in the first place =D

So, I've decided to bundle all ideas that I have for one big update. Let me share some of the things the update going to include:
- Balance update. Some builds are still quite OP and need to be nerfed and playtested more thoroughly this time. Immobilize builds, Internal Damage, and certain heat builds, in particular, going to be targeted.
- Item reworks. New content without bloating the game any further! Items that don't quite have a place in the game gonna get reworked/buffed. For example (but not limited to), Javelin, Heat Sinks, and Broadsword are all going to be more viable and interesting options. Broadsword for example now going to be one of few items that still can Immobilize enemies.
- QOL. I've received several requests to rename and color units. You guys obviously care, so why not =)?
- Enemies reworks. Scorpions are no longer invulnerable to status effects! But they do cut 50% of status effect damage. Armored Spiders that lacked tankiness now also cut 25% of status effect damage. Even though you've never brought that up, I can almost feel the distaste for Nullifiers on enemies =D Enhancers can now also add upgrades with this function to random enemies.
- New enemies. Or at least one. T3 always felt that it could use some new enemies. I don't want to add more enemies for the sake of adding fore enemies, but I've come up with an interesting mechanic for it. If I could come up with more enemies - I will gladly add more =)

This is not a complete list, but it gives an idea of what to expect from the update. The ETA for the update is February 2021.

Thanks to everyone for your support! I'll try to keep rolling the updates as long as there is interest in the game. Speaking of which, if you guys could namedrop the game in the discussions or recommend it to your favorite streamers who might enjoy it - this could help to keep up the interest =)