Randomness control, difficulty and a new specialist - Early Access Update #9

Randomness control, difficulty modes and a new specialist - Early Access Update #9

[p][/p][p]This update is immense. In terms of making the game more fun it is probably the most impactful we have released yet. Here is a quick overview:[/p]

[p]More control over the randomness in your builds[/p]
[p]Difficulty selection[/p]
[p]Balance rework[/p]
[p]New specialist - Phasewalker[/p]
[p]Heat modes - late game challenge[/p]

[p][/p][h3]BLUEPRINT POOLS - A LITTLE LESS RANDOMNESS = A LOT MORE FUN[/h3][p]Update 9 addresses one of the biggest issues in the game: until now the only way to control how you build your deck is unlocking the rerolls every 10 XP Levels. This led to a bigger and bigger pool of choices which made it harder and harder to control the composition of your deck throughout a run. And while randomness will always be a part of Rogue Command, this was not satisfying. [/p][p]With this update we are introducing the concept of themed blueprint pools. So instead of just getting fully random choices you will get some information about the choices. So you might get pools for Tanks, Burning and Healers. Or turrets, support buildings and armored units. [/p][p]In our testing and according to the feedback from our beta branch players (thank you to our discord community After beating Ascension 10 on the current patch you will unlock the Heat Mode selector in the Run Setup. Each Heat Level makes the enemies stronger with more HP and more damage. Counted in roman numerals this mode is theoretically endless and in our discord we saw people already pushing this way further than we ever thought possible. How far can you push it? [/p][p]BTW, difficulty is independent of Heat, so if you choose a lower mode you can still enter the gauntlet, at your own pace.
[/p][h3]BALANCE CHANGES[/h3][p]The balance has more or less been completely reworked. The goal is to have more action but less “spammy” enemies. Scarier big units and more easily disposed of smaller harassers. We are still not done. But in terms of how we want the game to feel this is a huge step in the right direction. [/p][p]The basic challenge has increased, so feel free to adjust the difficulty setting if it does not feel enjoyable.[/p][p][/p][h3]NEW SPECIALIST - THE PHASEWALKER[/h3][p]Jump your army across the battlefield and hit the enemy where it hurts! A powerful fighter in its own right, the Phasewalker shines by providing your army with a way in and out of fights and simultaneous powerful buffs. The added mobility makes playing with it feel very different to the other specialists. [/p][p]We can not wait to see the builds you will come up with around it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]NEW CONTENT[/h3][p]On top of a new specialist, there is also a couple of new blueprints.[/p]

[p]The Buckler Mech: Combining a great protective active ability with heavy melee attacks.[/p]
[p]Missile Truck: super long range multi missile artillery unit[/p]
[p]Weather Tower: a turret / super weapon combo with a powerful stun strike ability [/p]

[p]And some more cool new Hacks and Upgrades that add depth to systems that were a bit neglected. More to come for sure! [/p][p] [/p][h3]BETA BRANCH UPDATES[/h3][p]If you want to get all the updates early and help us test out the new changes, you can switch your game to the Beta branch in your Steam library. Right click -> Properties -> Betas and select the beta from the dropdown menu.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]See the full list of changes below.[/p]

FULL CHANGELIST

[h3][/h3][h3]NEW CONTENT:[/h3]

[p]New Specialist Phase Walker [/p]
[p]New Unit: Buckler Mech[/p]
[p]New Unit: Missile Truck[/p]
[p]New Support Turret: Weather Tower - powerful turret and global stun wielder.[/p]
[p]New Hack: Ancient Protection [/p]
[p]New Hack: Abrasive Bounty[/p]
[p]New Hack: Long Reach[/p]
[p]New Enemy Variant - CF Tank Patrol[/p]
[p]New enemy unit - PCX CF Tank[/p]
[p]New enemy variant: PCX Elite Deconstruction Division[/p]
[p]Themed starter blueprint selection[/p]
[p]Additional passive effects for Support Tank and Mantis Specialists.[/p]
[p]Objective to hunt a mobile PCX Controller in L1 or L2[/p]
[p]New enemy unit: PCX CF Burner[/p]
[p]Added active ability to Sniper Racer that summons a SpyCam [/p]

[h3]

[/h3][h3]ASCENSION CHANGES:[/h3]

[p]Ascension effects have been reworked a lot. [/p]
[p]Highlights is that Elite and Boss Enemies now get specific benefits at certain Ascensions. [/p]
[p]And enemies can get a chance to build “Overclocked” units. [/p]

[p]

[/p][h3]GENERAL CHANGES OR IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]

[p]Wisdomes cannot be targeted by ai anymore[/p]
[p]The first upgrade of a card can now influence the possibility of assigning the second upgrade of the card (e.g. Armored Attack upgrade can now be assigned to a blueprint with Armor-Up-Upgrade that had no armor originally)[/p]
[p]opening in-game menu, card view or deck view while in slow mode will now return into slow mode after closing it[/p]
[p]Introduced Heat Level after last Ascension is beaten[/p]
[p]Introduced difficulty modes[/p]
[p]Now it's possible to order an attack move via minimap[/p]
[p]Battle Preview Widget now also shows ascension and stage[/p]
[p]Database: sort by name as default[/p]
[p]Rerolls in the shop now also refills slots of bought items.[/p]
[p]Intermission screen now contains themed blueprint selections.[/p]
[p]Removed ability to build buildings on top of enemy units.[/p]
[p]Missile Truck now needs to deploy to attack[/p]
[p]Added duration info to Mantis specialist hacks[/p]
[p]Enemy or neutral buildings lying behind secondary fog of war now can be clicked and card info can be retrieved[/p]
[p]The deck can now be viewed again in the run results screen[/p]

[p]
[/p][h3]BUG FIXES:[/h3]

[p]Critical Burn upgrade can now only be applied to cards that deal attack damage[/p]
[p]Building Drop now destroys things like spider spawns and robo cores instead of letting them stuck beneath it[/p]
[p]While having multiple units selected and choosing target skill location the effect range circle will now update depending on which unit will cast its spell[/p]
[p]Made it more likely that no ai start building lies next to player start[/p]
[p]Boulder Turret Attack works more reliably[/p]
[p]Don’t let PCX units target stealthed player units with their skill[/p]
[p]Fixed Brazilian Heal Tower description[/p]
[p]IncendiaryAmmo now can only be applied to damage dealers[/p]
[p]Upgrades that change the area of skills or attacks can no longer be applied to lightning tower[/p]
[p]RangeUp upgrade can no longer be attached to Furnace[/p]
[p]While performing attack move now new targets are chosen within sight or weapon range (depending on what is higher) instead of sight range only[/p]
[p]Factory Glitch Drop and Factory Charger now work even if the factory is all queued up[/p]
[p]Don’t show crystal collect confirmer when Core Harvesters get a move command onto a crystal cell[/p]
[p]Fixed Boulder Turret dealing friendly damage.[/p]
[p]Don’t stack selection sounds[/p]
[p]Combat Engineer: don't teleport freshly produced units into map corners (where they stuck)[/p]
[p]Crystals can no longer be damaged by anything (except by harvesters)[/p]
[p]Prohibit walking on small cliffs diagonal to buildings because units might get stuck[/p]
[p]Prevent all healers from trying to heal allies, that can not be healed.[/p]
[p]Fixed a memory leak in the procedural mesh generation process[/p]
[p]Hack Faster attacks works correctly now[/p]
[p]Engineers can not be replicated by transport glitch hack. [/p]
[p]Reclaimer works correctly now[/p]
[p]Fixed some memory leaks[/p]
[p]Fixed some problems with layer borders introduced in the last update[/p]
[p]Robo medic heal line showing on card fixed[/p]
[p]Fixed some problems with layer borders introduced in the last update[/p]
[p]Tooltips now have a minimum distance to the borders[/p]
[p]Only select all units of same type if double clicking on same unit[/p]
[p]If blueprint is not yet unlocked it will not appear as reward in a specialised blueprint pool. If the pool contains not enough cards to choose from, it will be changed to the default pool.[/p]
[p]If AI unit cancels stealth of player entity because it is next to it, show entity as unstealthed again[/p]
[p]Fixed following behaviour while auto-attacking: the follower changed to its weapon range as follow distance and does not anymore[/p]
[p]Attack cooldown has now a minimum value of 0.025 (and thus attack rate has an upper limit)[/p]
[p]Hit box size on small PCX Slimes increased. [/p]
[p]Spy Tower should show up in Support Building Pools[/p]
[p]PCX Scouts should not interfere with volumetric fog[/p]
[p]Skill widget stat texts should no longer line break[/p]
[p]Healing Frugality now only checks for Harvester Factories and still works, when other types of refinery entities are on the map.[/p]
[p]Fixed the PCX Overseer card texts[/p]
[p]Fixed Infectious Extraction giving hidden stat boost[/p]
[p](hopefully fixed) audio issues when zoomed out too far.[/p]
[p]Engineer Particles should no longer shine through the deck view background[/p]
[p]missing Sniper Tag on Missile Truck added[/p]
[p]callback spire no longer showing in “spawner” pools[/p]
[p]Fixed “Solo” passive on sniper racer.[/p]
[p]Small layout fixes to the run result screen[/p]
[p]Fixed interaction between Hover Harvester passive rate increase and rate increase from active skill.[/p]
[p]Run Results Screen: Deck Overview can now be closed correctly using escape[/p]
[p]Vengeful silicone can no longer stun mantis when it kills friendly with redirect damage.[/p]
[p]Fire Mech Projectile hit more reliably and projectile count matches description[/p]
[p]Fixed error where enemy sometimes could no longer build Abductotrons[/p]
[p]Phase Walker Teleport no longer affects Harvesters.[/p]
[p]CF RespawnBackpacks only work when origin is AI[/p]
[p]Cargo only triggers on the first ever built Harvester Factory.[/p]

[p]
[/p][h3]BALANCE CHANGES:[/h3]

[p]PCX Prison HP reduced[/p]
[p]PCX Abductotron Skill charge up more visible / audible[/p]
[p]Crystal Towers no longer a possible base location for PCX[/p]
[p]Robo Harvester - Capacity 15 -> 10[/p]
[p]Armored Harvester - Capacity 80 -> 60 / Rate 8 -> 6[/p]
[p]Hover Collector - Cost 240 -> 260 / Rate 5 -> 4[/p]
[p]Core Harvester - HP 50 -> 30[/p]
[p]Kill charge upgrade charges 0.5 MP instead of 2.[/p]
[p]Recycler HP reduction 25 instead of 30%[/p]
[p]Support Tank HP bonus 25% instead of 20%.[/p]
[p]Mantis starting hack reduces attack by 10% instead of 20%. Added 25% move speed bonus for melee.[/p]
[p]Mantis Cap raised to 4, cost from 400 to 250 crystal.[/p]
[p]Light Artillery Cap raised cost reduced.[/p]
[p]Support Tank - Added passive Heal aura. Cost 160 to 140, DMG 9 to 12, Attack Cooldown 2.5 to 1.5, Skill Duration 30 to 25[/p]
[p]A lot smaller changes to the enemy starting building configurations. [/p]
[p]Blink Walker enemy nerfed.[/p]
[p]Strength and Turbo effects reduced.[/p]
[p]made some of the simple PCX units slightly stronger.[/p]
[p]Shields amount decreased on a lot of units and upgrades, decreased Shield recharge cooldown and increased recharge per second.[/p]
[p]Almost all PCX units +10 HP[/p]
[p]Player turrets caps raised and adjusted some damage and hp[/p]
[p]Tweaked the variables for the enemy attack behavior a bit.[/p]
[p]Complete Mantis rework[/p]
[p]Team Taker upgrade attack rate impact reduced[/p]
[p]Multi Grenade Van Projectiles are homing now[/p]
[p]Duplication ray can no longer target buildings[/p]
[p]Bounty bot skill damage adjusted upwards to make up for the shield decrease[/p]
[p]Rocket Walker shields increased and HP slightly decreased.[/p]
[p]Adjusted collision sizes on PCX small and mid slimes.[/p]
[p]Harvest Tuner rate increase 25% instead of 15.[/p]
[p]Tunneler enemy variant setup adjusted.[/p]
[p]Material Transfer has a max stack of 10 Armor now.[/p]
[p]A lot of changes to enemy units and enemy variants. The general goal is to have less unit spam in higher ascensions. A more difficult base level of difficulty. A better spread of the enemy bases.[/p]
[p]Recycler has a new passive aura effect (experimental). [/p]
[p]Mantis starts with 1 cap limit. Gains another with the specialist hacks. [/p]
[p]Protected Start no longer affects spawns.[/p]
[p]Further enemy variants changed to do less unit spam. [/p]
[p]Heat 0,10,20,30,40 and 50 now reduce enemy attack cooldowns by 5% [/p]
[p]Heat damage increase reduced to 2.5% per heat level.[/p]
[p]Heat: Added additional factories to Boss enemies from Earlier Ascensions added to the random rotation in heat runs.[/p]
[p]Mantis rebalance - MP cost rises per skill use. Base damage increased.[/p]
[p]Phase Walker rebalance[/p]
[p]Vampirism heal cap introduced[/p]
[p]more tweaks to some enemy setups[/p]
[p]PCX Corrosive Tractor armor reduction duration increased but capped at 0[/p]
[p]Increased the heal on Defender Heal upgrade[/p]
[p]Increased damage granted by Death Lesson Upgrade[/p]
[p]Buffed Sole Income Hack[/p]
[p]Decreased Wall Block Armor and raised HP[/p]
[p]PCX Tacticonnections summon more reinforcements on Ascension 6+ and 9+[/p]

[p]

[/p]