Axon TD: Uprising News

Version 0.3 has arrived, and with it, we have Global Upgrades, a ton of New Techs, more maps for Quickplay & Co-op, performance improvements, the ability to change Target Priority, QoL updates for Co-op, fixes, and more! Read on below for the full notes!

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• Fourth Meta Tech Tree added to Survival!
  
• 3 New Quickplay Maps:
  -- (Beginner) Vault 110
  -- (Intermediate) Crow's Nest
  -- (Advanced) Obstruction
  
• 3 New Co-op Maps
  -- (2p) Twister
  -- (3p) Triforge
  -- (4p) Lanes
  
• Chaos Mode added for Quickplay & Co-op!
  -- Random can now be toggled between Off, On, and Chaos
  -- On randomizes your Loadout at the start of the game
  -- Chaos randomizes your Loadout
• every single wave*. Enjoy!
  
• New Lava Mine biome, used in a few of the new maps
  

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

• Performance has been drastically improved!
  -- While still far from perfect, it should no longer drop to 1 FPS in late-game Survival, especially when using Network and/or Missile Launcher towers
  
• You can now change the Target Priority on a tower. To do so, select the tower, then select any of the following from the Priority Menu:
  -- Default
  -- Near
  -- Far
  -- Front
  -- Back
  -- Strong
  -- Weak
  -- Note, Default is the only option with "Smart Targeting" considerations (like Axon Type, Armor, Shields, etc). All other options will override those considerations.
  
• Double-clicking a tower now selects all towers of that type
  
• Damage Chart now shows Armor Damage via an orange bar
  
• Co-op has received some love:
  -- Notifications are here! If you're in the menu or in-game, you can now receive Co-op Notifications when a lobby is open! You can, of course, turn this setting off.
  -- In Lobby, maps are now split between 2p, 3p, and 4p Categories
  -- Hovering over another Player in the Scoreboard will show their Loadout
  -- At the end of a Co-op game, you can now Add Friend
• Added a # of Axons Counter on-screen, just below Wave Number
• Improved VFX for numerous Towers including Blast Cannon U1, Missile Launcher U1, Radiation Vent, Plasmathrower U2, Gravity Driver, and Reaper
  
• Improved VFX for several Axons, including Purger and Mass Cloaker
  
• Dialed down overbearing light on Snow Canyon environment
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where you got extra rewards when playing with fewer players than intended
  
• Fixed being able to join a Co-op game while it's in countdown
  
• Fixed the same Tech being able to show up twice in two different choices in a wave
  
• Fixed "Oldest Defense on the Field" Meta Tech, it no longer treats Blockers as Defenses
  
• Fixed Fullscreen option in Settings being switched
  
• Fixed viewing a Survival Replay greying out your own Survival Checkpoint
  
• In Survival, if you placed an Add over the Next Wave Obstacle Marker, but then Recycled that same Add, it'd remove the marker proper, but the Obstacle would still spawn in next wave. It now properly blocks the Obstacle from spawning next wave.
  

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[h2]Techs[/h2]

[h3]Changed Meta Techs[/h3]

• Scavenger:
  -- Old: +3 Recycles when you kill the first Boss.
  -- New: When killing a Boss, salvage it for scraps, granting a random resource reward from the following pool:
  -- +60 Credits | +30 Power | +3 ADDs | +3 Blockers | +1 Recycle and +1 ADD
  
• Life insurance:
  -- Old: Cannot lose more than 50 lives in a single wave.
  -- New: Once per game, prevents dying to leaks in any wave, start the next wave with 10 lives. Does not work on Bosses.
  
• Conservative:
  -- Old: +5% damage bonus while you have unused Expands.
  -- New: +1% damage bonus for every Blocker you have on the field, up to a cap of 5%.
  
• New Meta Tech: Gain the ability to remove 2 Techs permanently from the end of wave reward pool. This also rerolls the current reward selection.
  
• New Meta Tech: Gain the ability to remove 1 Defense permanently from the end of wave reward pool. This also rerolls the current reward selection.
  

[h3]Fourth Meta Tech Tree[/h3]

• 1st Column (single reward)
  -- +2 Power if your first placement in a wave is a MegaCorp or Astrosys Defense. +4 Credits if your first placement is a Vex Industries or New Frontier Defense.
  
• 2nd Column
  -- +3 ADDs at the start of the game if your starting Loadout consists of 2 Defenses from the same manufacturer.
  -- +1 Recycle at the start of the game if your starting Loadout consists of 2 Defenses from different manufacturers.
  
• 3rd column:
  -- MegaCorp Defense kills increase their damage, up to 10%. Resets each wave.
  -- +2 Credits per wave per unupgraded New Frontier Defense on the field. Up to 10 per wave.
  
• 4th Column:
  -- +5% attack speed for isolated Vex Industries Defenses(isolated meaning Defenses with no other Defenses within a 3x3 radius.
  -- +6 Power if an Astrosys Defense was the highest damaging Defense in any given wave.
  
• 5th Column:
  -- When building a MegaCorp Defense, the next MegaCorp Defense placement within the same wave is discounted by 10 Credits. Can only trigger once per wave.
  -- When upgrading an Astrosys Defense, the next Astrosys Defense upgrade within the same wave is discounted by 5 Power. Can only trigger once per wave.
  
• 6th Column:
  -- Overloading a Vex Defense also applies a continuous 20% Slow in a 1.5 AoE around it for 4 seconds.
  -- Upgrading a New Frontier Defense gives it a temporary +10% Damage Bonus. Lasts until the end of the wave.
  

[h3]New Techs[/h3]

• Axons get 4% slower per tile in the last 10 tiles before the exit.
  
• Using an Overload casts your other Overload on an adjacent Tower, if possible.
  
• Using an Overload on a Defense with no other Defenses within a 3x3 area doesn't trigger the Overload cooldown.
  
• +5% attack speed for all Defenses adjacent to an Obstacle.
  
• -15 Credit cost for the next Defense placement this wave when placing down an ADD adjacent to an Obstacle.
  
• Every 15 seconds, the newest Axon on the field gets hit with a 6s EMP.
  
• When you leak, Stun the frontmost Axon on the field for 5s.
  
• Placing a Tower on a Blocker gives it a 5% damage bonus. Consumes the Blocker.
  
• +1 ADD when placing a Tower on a Blocker. Consumes the Blocker.
  
• Axons within 1 range of a Blocker take 4 damage per second.
  
• Placing a Blocker on a Blocker consumes the Blocker and creates a mini-nuke.
  
• Recycles can now be used on Obstacles. Doing so does not grant an ADD.
  
• +3 Lives when spending 50 Credits or less in wave.
  
• +1 Recycle when hitting more than 15 Axons with one Overload. Can only Trigger once per wave. Doesn't work with Boost Range, Compound Rounds or Hypercharge.
  
• +10 Credits when selling a Defense that costs 50 Credits or less. Can only trigger once per wave.
  
• +2 Power per adjacent walkable tile when you place down a Defense. Can only trigger once per wave.
  
• +1 Recycle when connecting to a platform without a pre-placed Tower. Can only trigger once per wave.
  
• +8 Lives when clearing a wave you leaked.
  
• Axons take 5% extra damage while they are not under the effect of EMP.
  
• Defenses gain 3% damage per adjacent Defenses from the same manufacturer.
  
• +25 lives instantly.
  
• +4 ADDs, +2 Blockers, and +1 Recycle instantly.
  
• +1 Recycle for the next 5 subsequent waves.
  
• +6% bonus damage for all Defenses. Every 5 towers on the field reduces the bonus by 1%.
  
• +15% Credits from destroying Axons for the next 3 waves.
  
• +5% damage for all your Defenses for the next 5 waves.
  
• Reduce Tower damage by 10% for a wave, gain 50 Credits and 1 Recycle in return.
  
• Get all the resources from all the other options. You do not get the Defense, Defense Upgrades or Techs from the other choices.
  
• Sacrifice 10 lives, gain 50 Credits and 25 Power in return(has a max wave of 15).
  
• +5 lives, +1 Recycle and +3 ADDs if you get a Perfect wave for the next 3 waves.
  

[h3]Faction Techs[/h3]
The following Techs only appear if you have Defenses from said manufacturer:

• MegaCorp Defenses reduce the Credit cost of adjacent MegaCorp Defenses by 3.
  
• +20 Credits per wave while your defense consists of 40% or more MegaCorp Defenses. These Techs you can hover over to show current %
• Any Vex Industries defenses placed within 4 range of the exit gain +1 Range or if it hasn't got an active range, +1 AoE.
  
• +10 Power per wave while your defense consists of 40% or more Vex Industries Defenses.
  
• Astrosys defenses can be placed on an empty tile, automatically placing an ADD tile under it, at the cost of 10 Power.
  
• +1 ADD per wave while your defense consists of 40% or more Astrosys Defenses.
  
• New Frontier Towers adjacent to a Blocker has their cooldown reduced by 15%.
  
• +1 Blocker per wave while your defense consists of 40% or more New Frontier Defenses.
  

[h3]Overload Techs[/h3]
The following Techs only appear in Survival and only the Overloads you have can show up:

• Hypercharge attack rate increased from x3 to x4
  
• Boost Range also affects adjacent towers. Half range on adjacent towers.
  
• Compound Rounds also affects adjacent towers. Half duration on adjacent targets.
  
• Nuke HP Damage increased by 10%
  
• EMP Blast range increased by 1
  
• Stasis Wave range increased by 1
  
• Zeus Cannon HP Damage increased by 20%
  
• Amplify Wave amp increased to 75%
  

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[h2]Balance[/h2]

[h3]General[/h3]

• Replaced Tower Techs with Global Upgrades:
  -- You will no longer encounter Tower Techs in the End of Wave Rewards
  -- New button added to the Tower Select UI called Global Upgrade
  -- Costs 75 Power in Survival, 50 Power in Quickplay and Co-op
  
• Survival HP Multiplier at Wave 31 reduced from x2.6 to x2.4
  -- Everything after Wave 31 has also received an HP Multiplier drop of x0.2
  
• In Survival, the Techs based on improving Mines will no longer show up until you have a Mine in your Loadout

[h3]Axons[/h3]

Avenger Squadron

-- Speed multiplier per killed Avenger increased from 25% to 30%.

Booster

-- Now boosts upon coming out of the portal.
-- Speed boost duration increased from 0.25s to 0.6s.
-- Speed boost multiplier reduced from 3 to 2.8.

Medivac

-- Increased healing from 40 + 1% to 40 + 1.5%.

Purger

-- Can no longer be EMP'd by EMP Gatling

[h3]Defenses[/h3]

Arc Reactor

• Global Upgrade buffed, now gives +1 bounce in addition to its old effect.
  

Artillery

• U1 DoT reduced from 18 damage over 6s to 15 damage over 5s.
  

Blast Cannon

• Base damage increased from 12 to 14.
  
• U2 Slow duration increased from 1.5s to 2s.
  
• U3 damage bonus per Blast Cannon reduced from 15% to 10%.
  
• U3 damage bonus cap reduced from 120% to 100%.
  
• Global Upgrade buffed. The Armor ignore now also applies to the U1 explosives. Additionally, grants 35% attack speed.
  Blast Cannon was just a stright up much worse alternative than Artillery. Brought down U3 a bit to compensate. Might replace this upgrade in the future.

Command Link

• U3 adjusted to grant 3 Power per 2 adjacent Defenses, from 2 per 1.
  
• U3 is now capped at 18 Power per wave.
  

Cryo Beam

• Global upgrade bounce buff duration reduction removed.
  

EMP Gatling

• Global Upgrade buffed, now gives +1 Range in addition to its old effect.
  

EMP Mine

• Credit Cost increased from 50 to 75.
  
• U3 AoE increase removed.
  
• U3 Power cost reduced from 30 to 25.
  

Frag Hammer

• Base damage increased from 50 to 55.
  
• U3 damage increased from 30 to 35.
  
• Global Upgrade buffed, now gives +10 Damage in addition to its previous effect.
  

Gravity Driver

• Base slow increased from 25% to 30%.
  
• U3 Power cost increased from 25 to 30.
  
• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Range increased by 1.
  -- New: +10% Slow against Axons above 80% HP.
  

Gravity Generator

• U1 EMP Cooldown increased from 8s to 9s.
  
• Global Upgrade damage per second increased from 2 to 4.
  

Gravity Trap

• U3 cooldown increased from 5s to 10s.
  
• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Upgrade Costs reduced by 5.
  -- New: Passive slow increased to 40%. All upgrades retain the passive slow from the base trap.
  

Link Blaster

• Base damage increased from 10 to 12.
  
• U3 damage increased from 14 to 16.
  
• Global Upgrade buffed, now reduces upgrade costs by -1 for each adjacent Link Blaster in addition to the old effect.
  

Mass Driver

• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: When hitting 3 Axons or less, reduce the cooldown of the next attack by 25%.
  -- New: When hitting 5 Axons or less, apply a 20% slow for 3s.
  

Missile Launcher

• Base damage reduced to 20 to 18.
  
• U1 reworked:
  -- Old: Increased AoE the further away from the tower that the target is, up to a max of 3.5.
  -- New: Increases AoE from 1.5 to 2.5.
  
• U1 damage reduced from 15 to 14.
  
• U3 damage increased from 15 to 20.
  
• U3 AoE increased from 0.7 to 1.
  
• U3 cooldown increased from 1s to 2s.
  

Network

• Credit Cost increased from 100 to 125.
  
• U1 reworked:
  -- Old: Increases the damage output of all connected Network beams.
  -- New: Increases the damage cap of all connected Network beams by 2, up to a cap of 40.
  
• U2 rescaled:
  -- Slow per upgrade increased from 4% to 6%
  -- Slow cap reduced from 32% to 30%.
  
• U3 reworked:
  -- Old: Kills from any connected Network beam generates additional Credits.
  -- New: Kills from any connected Network beam generates additional Credits up to a Global Cap. Each connected Network U3 Tower increases the Global Cap by 6, up to a maximum of 30 per wave.
  
• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Reduces the upgrade cost of adjacent Astrosys towers by 5.
  -- New: Reduces the upgrade cost of Astrosys towers under a Network beam by 5.
  
• In addition, the Network tower UI now lists all active Network caps. So if you have for example 3 Network U1's in one Network, it will list that the damage cap is 36 when clicking on any tower in that Network.
  

Nuclear

• Refreshing the U3 buff now extends its duration by 2s.
  

Orbital Cannon

• Global Upgrade damage bonus per adjacent tower increased from 5% to 6%.
  

Portable Generator

• Global Upgrade damage bonus to adjacent MegaCorp Defenses increased from 25% to 30%.
  

Plasmathrower

• U2 Debuff AoE increased from 0.5 to 1.
  

Plasma Vent

• Global Upgrade buffed, now also allows other Plasma Vents next to it for a damage bonus.
  

Proximity Mine

• Credit Cost increased from 25 to 30.
  
• All upgrade Power costs increased from 25 to 30.
  
• Base AoE reduced from 1.5 to 1.
  
• U1 aftershock damage multiplier reduced from 0.8 to 0.6.
  
• U3 damage reduced from 50 to 30.
  
• U3 AoE reduced from 2.5 to 2.
  
• U3 Slow reduced from 50% to 40%.
  
• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Reduces cooldown by 5s.
  -- New: Killing blows reset the cooldown.
  Overall, Proximity Mine provided too much value for too little cost. In all the existing hard clears, U3 was used as low-cost spam slow.

Pulseray

• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Attack speed increased by 25%.
  -- New: Every 3rd attack triggers a second instant attack. Mini-stun duration increased from 0.1s to 0.2s.
  

Radiation Vent

• Fixed an issue where Radiation Vent U2 and U3 weren't applying consistently to fast-moving Axons.
  
• Each of its Upgrades are now independent from one another and can be stacked, meaning the base trap will no longer override the Upgrades
  
• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Applies a 10% damage amp whenever a Radiation Vent Debuff expires.
  -- New: Applies a 3% damage amp for each unique Radiation Vent debuff affecting an Axon.
  

Reaper

• U3 reworked:
  -- Old: Gain damage on each kill up to a cap. Resets each wave.
  -- New: Increased base damage from 7 to 20. No longer deals bonus damage the lower the target's HP is. Instead deals 25% bonus damage per Debuff type the target is affected by.
  -- Targeting adjusted from Weak to prioritize Debuffed targets and then Strong.
  
• Global Upgrade buffed, now applies a 3s EMP every 5th shot to Axons with abilities in addition to its old effect.
  

Seeker Drone

• U1 replaced and moved to U2:
  -- Old: Deals additional damage when the target is below 50% health.
  -- New: If the Axon the drone is attached to dies, a shockwave is released, stunning Axons within 2 AoE for 2s.
  
• U2 to moved to U1.
  
• Global Upgrade buffed, now gives +0.5 range in addition to its old effect.
  

Sniper

• Global Upgrade buffed. Gives +5 Damage in addition to its old effect.
  

Target Marker

• Target Marker has been completely reworked. Now applies a marker to an Axon that passes over it for 4s, then deals damage multiplied by 0.3 in 2 AoE based on the damage the target received while marked.
  
• Credit cost increased increased from 50 to 75.
  
• U1 increases the duration by 1s and slows the target by 40%.
  
• U2 increases the damage multiplier and the AoE but only hits up to 5 Axons.
  
• U3 causes the shockwave to instead buff Towers within range. AoE is reduced, but scales up with attacks. Duration increased to 6s.
  
• Global Upgrade: AoE increased by 1.
  

Temporal Mine

• Global Upgrade reworked:
  -- Old: Increases teleport distance for each adjacent empty walkable tile by 2.
  -- New: Deals 12 damage within 2 AoE of where each Axon is teleported.
  

World Engine

• U3 damage reduced from 11 to 9.
  

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That's everything! Somehow, these notes ended up rivaling the ridiculous length of Version 0.2's Patch Notes. But, we hope all these changes are worthwhile. As usual, __Leaderboards have been reset__.

You may have noticed a lack of changes for Campaign despite all the updates recently. We're in the process of doing a big update on the Campaign, including a story rewrite, some mission reworks, overhauling its tech tree, a new chapter, and more. That will be coming in Version 0.4.

In the meantime, enjoy the new version!

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[h3]Roadmap Tweaks[/h3]
Lastly, we've updated our Roadmap. And a few things have moved around on there slightly.

Workshop may be coming sooner than originally expected...

Next week, on Friday, December 15th, we'll be releasing Version 0.3! This version includes:

• Tower Techs redone into Global Upgrades
  
• Meta Tech Tree for Survival getting a Fourth Tree
  
• New Techs
  
• New Quickplay & Co-op Maps
  
• Ability to select Targeting Priorities
  
• Balance Adjustments
  
• Performance Improvements
  

And of course, QoL improvements, bug fixes, and the usual. Read on for the full preview!

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[h2]Global Upgrades[/h2]
Throughout your playthroughs, you may have encountered Tower Techs. These would apply to all towers of that type and add some unique benefit for that tower type. The problem is:

• These showed up in End-of-Wave Rewards only, so you didn't get to choose the timing
  
• And it would be randomized, so even when you did get it, you couldn't choose which one
  
• Numerous builds relied on Tower Techs to be usable
  

So, we've decided to take them out of the End-of-Wave Rewards and add a new button! Behold:

We've made Gravity Trap useful again! In theory...

Buying a Global Upgrade costs 75 Power in Survival, and everywhere else, it costs 50 Power. These values are not finalized, though with only a week to go, probably also won't change.

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[h2]Survival[/h2]
To help differentiate each run, we've added more Techs to the game! These include (but are not limited to):

• Upgrades to Overloads
• Sacrificing a Blocker on another Blocker to trigger an explosion
  
• Additional function on Recycle, enabling it to be used on an Obstacle to remove it
  
• Manufacturer specific techs
  
• And many more!
  

Additionally, we've added a Fourth Tree to the Meta Tech Tree. With these, we've also balanced a few of the existing Meta Techs, including everyone's favorite, the ability to not lose more than 50 lives a wave. That one has been overhauled.

Now introducing a way to remove Techs from the pool.

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[h2]New Maps[/h2]
To make use of the new Techs, we have 3 New Quickplay Maps & 3 New Co-op Maps, just like last time!

New maps and new backdrop. Have fun figuring this one out!

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[h2]Targeting Priorities[/h2]
It's been requested a few times, and now, the ability to change Targeting Priorities is here! The way this is works is that every Defense in the game has a Default Priority. This includes all their smart targeting functions. You also have options for:

• Front
  
• Back
  
• Near
  
• Far
  
• Strong
  
• Weak
  

Do note, selecting one of those will override smart targeting. If you want the original targeting back, just change it back to the Default option.

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[h2]Balance Adjustments[/h2]
We already did our lengthy chat on Balance last week with our Balance & Sandbox Designer, Johan, so we'll just mention outliers here:

• Blast Cannon is getting buffed
  
• Target Marker is getting reworked into a Mine
  
• Missile Launcher, Proximity Mine, EMP Mine, and Network are all getting nerfed
  
• Any upgrades that gave uncapped resources are getting capped
  
• Numerous other smaller buffs across the board
  

See that red explosion? Target Marker caused that.

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[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]
For those of you that managed to "beat" Survival before, you may have noticed the game becoming slightly unplayable at a certain point. 1 FPS? Time to go on a walk each wave.

We've managed to isolate certain things and performance on the whole should be much better! Not perfect; late-game Survival in Wave 80+ is still likely to drop to 10 FPS at its worst. But overall, it is far more playable. And FPS between waves shouldn't tank anymore either. We're looking to improve it even more in the future.

This can actually run at decent FPS now.

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And that's it for the Version 0.3 Preview! We might be sneaking some other things into the patch next week, like Chaos Mode, which randomizes your Loadout every single wave. Who knows what else will make it in there!

Look forward to the release on Friday, December 15th!

Hello there! My name is Johan, also known as Taencred and I’m the Balance and Sandbox Design Lead at Element Studios for Axon TD: Uprising. Today, we’re going to be giving a high-level explanation for our overall balance goals, as well as acknowledging our mistakes and looking to the future.

It’s a bit of a long one, so go grab some popcorn and something to drink, and if you like to get into the nitty gritty details of things as much as I, enjoy the read!

Topics of discussion:

• Tactical Choice
  
• Improving Choices, Step by Step
  
• Maintaining the Challenge
  
• Mistakes and Learnings

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[h2]Tactical Choice[/h2]
Whenever you see a reward, you can see a potential development you can make to the field with that reward. This is a Tactical Choice.
The place where you primarily see this in every mode, is whenever you beat a wave. The End of Wave rewards choice will pop up. These are mostly split into three categories:

• Credits, which allow you to place down new Defenses.
  
• Path manipulation items (ADDs, Blockers & Recycles), which allow you to alter the map.
  
• Power, or Power + Techs, which allow you to upgrade your Defenses and/or invest into future gains.

You often end up wanting to Expand to a nearby Island, place something down to cover your exit, or upgrade one of your Traps in the front at the same time, making for interesting decisions that affect how the session will progress beyond that point as well.

That’s the most basic form of tactical choice that exists at the core of our game, and if there’s one thing we want you to take away from this post it’s that our goal with any balance change or addition in this game is always the same:

Offer more choices.

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[h2]Improving Choices, Step by Step[/h2]
If the player knows that something isn’t worth picking up, it’s no longer a choice. If something is way too good for what you have to spend on it, it also removes the other potential choices from your considerations as a player.

Ideally, we’d always want to balance these choices around relative value so that all of them are somewhat equal. If every upgrade or Tech in the game were straight up damage, attack speed, range or cost adjustments, it’d make sense to only think of the game like that.

Most upgrades however, are by design much more interesting. In addition to that, any given Defense or its Upgrades have interactions with other Defenses, which raises or decreases their general value. So sometimes it’s not even a case of the Defense itself being too powerful, but rather a combination of multiple Defenses. We also often encounter interactions we didn’t anticipate or plan for.

Lastly, different Defenses are designed to solve different problems, and with every single map in the game having unique wave orders, map layouts and to some degree rewards, it often takes a little longer to analyze where the balance problems lie.

Our goal is to keep tuning existing Defenses, Techs, Overloads and Axons to make each choice as interesting as possible.

With that said, we don’t intend to always have every choice be equally viable. That would be a near impossible task, and it would leave us with little room for designing new additions as well, since some are more situational than others. However, you should at the very least be interested in considering each choice and what it could possibly do for you.

This is expected to be an ongoing process throughout all of Early Access and beyond.

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[h2]Maintaining the Challenge[/h2]
One thing is true for any game. The fun of it essentially comes from overcoming challenges. When things are too easy, you get bored. When things are too difficult, it’s frustrating.
This end of the spectrum is where aside from bringing things down that have a relatively higher value than other Defenses, we also look at our Axons and the overall economy of the game.

Axons are generally pretty easy to balance. We look at what they’re supposed to counter, or add to a composition, and make sure they meaningfully do so across the entire game as you play. In Survival, we also have a ramping HP multiplier applied to all Axons the further in you go to make sure they stay relevant. Additionally, all healing abilities have percentage-based values to make sure they scale into the later parts of the game.

Our goal is that all Axons should stand out from one another and counter something different.
You can expect occasional adjustments to various Axons to try and make each one a bit more unique over time.

Before we get into the next point, let’s just quickly define the word “economy” in this context.
Economy refers to all resource gains and costs. Resources include Credits, Power, ADDs, Blockers and Recycles.
Overall the economy mainly comes down to 5 factors:

• Credits from killing Axons.
  
• Credits and Power from Generators on the map.
  
• End of Wave Credits/Power/Path Manipulation Rewards
  
• Techs that generate Credits/Power/Path Manipulation Rewards
  
• Defenses and their Upgrades that generate Credits and Power

When it comes to Campaign, Quickplay and Co-op, this is fairly straightforward to balance on a map by map basis. The resources you have access to are limited, and you therefore naturally have to make decisions about expanding through the maps to make use of generators and gain other advantages, and your loadout choices naturally have an impact on your progression. In addition, because you actually have to make these tradeoff choices, you can’t always pick the Techs.

In Survival, this can easily get out of hand, especially with a bit of luck on the Tech side. In 0.2, you wouldn’t even need much luck, since players managed to push all the way to the end, and thus were able to grab most of the Techs in the game (some disappear from the reward pool once you hit a certain wave count). You get significantly more resources for free just by surviving, and you also have the meta progression rewards from the Upgrades.

Our goal here is a bit more complicated because Survival is endless and the other modes are not. We want to make sure that resource generation is something that feels useful and good to build around in all modes, while simultaneously not allowing it to get out of hand in Survival. Therefore we’re closely monitoring caps and restrictions we implement to make sure they land correctly, and will iterate as is necessary to hit that goal.

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[h2]Mistakes and Learnings[/h2]
Let’s address the elephant in the room. What happened with Survival Endless in 0.2?
Well, quite frankly, roughly what I expected!

I knew Normal wave 120 would be beaten (to be clear, wave 120 was only ever supposed to be a technical limitation, no player should ever reach there realistically), but I wasn’t sure there were still things in the game strong enough to also clear Hard at that point.
Mind you, the HP multiplier at wave 120 is x48! The only reason it’s possible to break the game to that extent is because a few select Defenses so greatly exceeded the desired value-to-cost ratio that instead of the game getting harder, it felt like it was getting easier and easier at that point.

The Sandbox (All the Axons, Towers, Overloads and Techs) of Axon TD is rather big (and we plan on further expanding on it quite a bit!), and Endless Survival wasn’t the only thing we were working on in 0.2, so I already knew we wouldn’t have the time necessary to find and fix all existing ways of breaking the game in time for its release. Not only was this game never built to last that long, but if there’s one thing you can always count on from your players, it’s that they will find new ways to break your game that you never expected.

Aside from relative value outliers like Proximity Mine, Network and Missile Launcher, there were also two other enormous things we had overlooked.
Specifically, these were Network U3 and Command Link U3. For those unfamiliar, Network U3 generates Credits per kill under a Network Beam, and Command Link U3 generates Power at the end of each wave per connected Tower. Neither of these were capped!
The madness that ensued from the individuals who realized this was endless Credits and Power in an "endless" mode!

So what have we learned? Well, future additions will be reviewed differently, more carefully, both in terms of how they could scale, and how they might need to be capped in order to not completely break the economy of the game. It’s not that this wasn’t done before. We often had conversations about this and made changes to account for it, but we obviously need to be even more strict in how we look over each and every one of the Upgrades and Techs whenever we make a major change.

Lastly, to be completely transparent about where we’re going, our high-level goal is for the best players to get no further than wave 80-90 in Survival on Normal. This is for a couple of reasons.

• Keep the players engaged in pushing builds the furthest possible.
  
• If several builds can get to wave 120, the leaderboards will end up being about who gets there the fastest and the most flawless, and that’s very demanding on players on a wave by wave basis in such a long mode.
  
• We want to respect the player’s time better. No run should ever take 10+ hours to complete. In fact we’re aiming closer to 4-5 hours at most.
  
• We can use a specific wave number as a benchmark for how strong a build should be allowed to be to help encourage build diversity among the top players, and also as an indicator how far we can buff up underperforming builds.

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With all of that said, I think it’s about time to wrap up this lengthy article and thank you for reading and understanding if you got this far.
Our intention here was to be a bit more transparent so that all of you, our acting commanders, can understand where we’re coming from and our overarching philosophy when we’re making adjustments.

Thanks for all the support and the feedback so far! Our hope is that when you see Axon TD: Uprising in your Steam library, it’s something you’re always excited to try new things in. We’ve still got some ways to go I would imagine, but we’ll keep trying!

Next week, we’ll be previewing the upcoming Version 0.3 patch, so look forward to that!

Cheers
/ Johan

This is just a check-in, letting you all know what we've been working on. Coming up in December will be Version 0.3, focused on More Techs, reworking Tower Techs into something you have control over, and more. And also an update on what you should expect for Q1 2024.

But before we dive in, we have some winners to announce...

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[h2]Survival Contest Winners[/h2]

• Tobias - 3,456,488
  
• MegaRobman - 3,336,593
  
• Pon-Pon L'Mouton, aka "Averoes" - 2,113,024
  

Congratulations to our winners from the Survival Contest, and thank you to everyone that participated! Should we run this again in the future, we'll be looking into ways to improve it to make it more friendly to participate (and prevent copying existing entries).

Now, onto the previews...

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Releasing December 2023

Our next big update to the game is focused on More Techs, a change to Tower Techs, and more balance updates. This primarily will improve Survival, though it will of course affect Quick Play & Co-op. We'll also working on UI updates and improvements to make the gameplay experience smoother.

Below is a minor breakdown of some of the above.


[h3]Tower Techs[/h3]
Currently, the way getting a Tower Tech works is, when it shows up as a reward, it gives a random tower the respective tech. Or in Survival, a random one shows up, and you choose whether to grab it at that moment or not. The problems with this system are:

• You don't get to choose when it shows up
  
• And when it does show up, you don't get to choose which one
  
• Additionally, numerous builds are reliant on certain Tower Techs to function properly.
  

We are addressing those problems with a more intuitive solution that puts the control in your hands. Exact details will come in the Version 0.3 Patch Preview later this month.


[h3]New Techs[/h3]
The above new system for Tower Techs will remove some techs from the pool. However, we'll be supplementing it back with a bunch more new ones. This includes ones that give more purpose to your Blockers, a way to remove Obstacles, techs that empower your Overloads, and more!


[h3]Meta Techs[/h3]
In Version 0.2, we added the Meta Tech Tree in Survival, which let you progress three different trees and choose some more minor powers to cater to your playstyle. For Version 0.3, we'll be adding a 4th tree.


[h3]New Maps[/h3]
Once again, there'll be another set of 3 New Quickplay Maps, as well as 3 New Co-op Maps! They'll be making use of some of the new techs. We'll also be adjusting the tech rewards on existing maps, especially ones that had Tower Techs as a reward.


[h3]Survival Scaling[/h3]
For those of you that have managed to "beat Wave 120" in Survival, that is not intended. On one hand, it is touted as an endless mode, one you're meant to get as far as you can in. On the other hand:

• At Wave 70, the HP Multiplier is at around x18
  
• At Wave 120, the HP Multiplier is at around x48
  
• And Wave 30 is when the amount of resources/rewards you get per wave stops going up.
  

Genuinely, anything capable of getting to Wave 120 is either blatantly OP or scales way too strongly. Some of it is on the mode itself, we're looking into adjusting the scaling so that the difficulty ramp goes up more steadily.

And some of this is on balance, like the Meta Tech that prevents you from losing more than 50 Lives per wave. Obviously, expect that one to be redesigned.


[h3]Balance[/h3]
The previous version hit up a good number of towers and made them generally more usable. We'll be further touching up on that, hitting up some more Towers and other Defenses that are either problematic or in need of some love. Blast Cannon, for example, desperately needs something that lets it scale, especially in light of Pulseray's recent updates.


[h3]Performance[/h3]
We're aware that the game runs into some serious slowdowns, especially in late-game Survival & Co-op. We've identified problems with certain towers (like Network) that should help with that, which will be coming in Version 0.3. Beyond that, we're looking into other ways to optimize the game, which may or may not make it into next version.


That's all for the early preview of Version 0.3. Expect a more in-depth preview in a few weeks! However, we also want to give you a progress update on stuff coming in Version 0.4...

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Releasing Q1 2024

[h3]Campaign[/h3]
Since Early Access release, the Campaign has received a few minor updates. Some bug fixes and some difficulty tweaks, but that's it so far.

For the upcoming Version 0.3, it still won't be receiving updates, and that's because we are in the process of rewriting the bulk of the script. Much of the core plot points remain the same, but we're drastically expanding the lore and plot threads. We're also looking to improve it on the gameplay end. Having New Techs will help make the Tech Tree far more interesting as well.

When we're ready to talk about it and Chapter 3, we'll do a whole preview post for it.


[h3]New Towers & Axons[/h3]
Also coming in the same update will be 4 New Defenses and some new Axons! They'll be filling in some roles that are currently lacking. Expect a separate preview post for it in January!


[h3]2-Player Survival[/h3]
And the other big thing in that update will be 2-Player Survival! Because that mode wasn't ridiculous enough already, especially later in the game.

[h2]Survival Leaderboard Contest[/h2]
Do you have what it takes to reach the top of the Survival leaderboards? Our first ever leaderboard competition is now live!

• Be the top person on the Survival Leaderboards for the first map, Blank Canvas!
  
• This'll run from October 27th to November 3rd.
  -- Start and cutoff times will be 11am PST / 2pm EST / 8pm CET.
  

[h3]Submission Details[/h3]
First up, join our Discord. You'll be posting your run in the #survival-contest channel.

To qualify, please stream your run, and provide a link to the VOD (and timestamp, if it's a longer video). Uploading a recording to, for example YouTube, is also acceptable.

You must also provide the relevant replay. You can find it here:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\LocalLow\Element Studios\Axon TD_ Uprising

[h3]Rewards[/h3]

• First place will get $200
  
• Second place will get $100
  
• Third place will get $50