Next Version coming October 13th
A few weeks ago, we ran an Open Beta for Endless Survival, and we received a lot of positive feedback on it. We also saw folks "break the game". That said, while we work on polishing up this version, we want to clarify how we're intending on approaching this.
[h2]Balance Philosophy[/h2]
Our approach to balance in this game is much more lax than it was in Element TD 2. As many builds as possible should work. If something is little strong, that's fine. If something is weak, buff it. Only nerf something if it stands out.
However, with the introduction of Endless Survival, certain effects and upgrades are scaling way stronger in that mode, to the extent that it's breaking the mode itself. We don't want to adjust everything else to be Endless either (which, doing so would arguably homogenize the rest of the game). At the same time, we can't just hard nerf those upgrades because, well, they'd be terrible everywhere else.
As a result, there's a lot of changes. Just about every Tower, Trap, Mine, & Upgrade is being adjusted. This includes:
On top of that, numerous Axons got some buffs. Some buffed so that the relative balance in early game is about the same. Some buffed so they scale stronger later in the game. At the same time, we've improved Smart Targeting so that towers will focus particularly dangerous Axons better (ie, Mass Teleporter).
We also found numerous bugs that rendered certain towers either useless (Orbital Cannon U3 stunlocking itself) or way more powerful than intended (Drilling Laser U3 triggering rapid-fire explosions at the edge of its range).
On the whole, there should be far more options and build variety than before. Experiment at will, and form tons of fun new builds!
That's odd, I don't recall Pulseray having a continuous beam...
[hr][/hr]
[h3]Endless Survival[/h3]
For those of you that tried the Open Beta, whether you hardcore broke the mode or not, we are bumping the HP scaling on it. Numerous folks were reaching way further than intended, and that's without Meta Techs accounted for. Of course, we're working on rebalancing some of those as well.
Additionally, many in-game Techs have been buffed, and they no longer disappear after certain waves. We're looking into adding some sort of weight so you can't see the same one that you've passed over and over again.
We can confirm that 16,000 Lives is no longer possible to achieve.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]Patch Release Date[/h2]
We plan to release Version 0.2 on Friday, October 13th. Included in it will be:
[h2]Balance Philosophy[/h2]
Our approach to balance in this game is much more lax than it was in Element TD 2. As many builds as possible should work. If something is little strong, that's fine. If something is weak, buff it. Only nerf something if it stands out.
However, with the introduction of Endless Survival, certain effects and upgrades are scaling way stronger in that mode, to the extent that it's breaking the mode itself. We don't want to adjust everything else to be Endless either (which, doing so would arguably homogenize the rest of the game). At the same time, we can't just hard nerf those upgrades because, well, they'd be terrible everywhere else.
As a result, there's a lot of changes. Just about every Tower, Trap, Mine, & Upgrade is being adjusted. This includes:
- Boring upgrades.
-- We have a few too many upgrades that are just "increased range", and we want to reduce those. - Redundant upgrades.
-- Ie, Nuclear has three upgrades that increase how much damage it deals, just in different ways. One of them will be replaced with a support effect of some kind. - And then upgrades that are only good in a specific mode.
-- % HP damage, for example, is going out the window
-- Certain upgrades let you accrue silly amounts of Power and Lives, especially in longer modes
On top of that, numerous Axons got some buffs. Some buffed so that the relative balance in early game is about the same. Some buffed so they scale stronger later in the game. At the same time, we've improved Smart Targeting so that towers will focus particularly dangerous Axons better (ie, Mass Teleporter).
We also found numerous bugs that rendered certain towers either useless (Orbital Cannon U3 stunlocking itself) or way more powerful than intended (Drilling Laser U3 triggering rapid-fire explosions at the edge of its range).
On the whole, there should be far more options and build variety than before. Experiment at will, and form tons of fun new builds!
That's odd, I don't recall Pulseray having a continuous beam...[hr][/hr]
[h3]Endless Survival[/h3]
For those of you that tried the Open Beta, whether you hardcore broke the mode or not, we are bumping the HP scaling on it. Numerous folks were reaching way further than intended, and that's without Meta Techs accounted for. Of course, we're working on rebalancing some of those as well.
Additionally, many in-game Techs have been buffed, and they no longer disappear after certain waves. We're looking into adding some sort of weight so you can't see the same one that you've passed over and over again.
We can confirm that 16,000 Lives is no longer possible to achieve.[hr][/hr]
[h2]Patch Release Date[/h2]
We plan to release Version 0.2 on Friday, October 13th. Included in it will be:
- Endless Survival
- Survival Meta Tech Tree
- 3 New Quickplay Maps
- 3 New Co-op Maps
- Hard Difficulty
- A ton of balance changes
- Quality-of-life and bug fixes