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Update v1.0.4 - Balance

[p]We've just pushed a new patch, bumping the version to 1.0.4. This update focuses on improving the balance in a number of areas that we've been getting feedback about. [/p][p][/p][p]There are two issues that we're aiming to address with this update, as we'll get into below.[/p][p][/p][h3]Unable to progress after having maxed out all available upgrades[/h3][p]If you don't end up landing on a good enough build, there's a chance you'll get stuck in a state where you're gated from progressing any further, because you don't have any upgrades left to spend your tokens on. [/p][p][/p][p]While we do want there to be some strategy involved in making a build that can get you past the next hurdle, we also understand the bad feeling of having to abandon the build you've been investing into.[/p][p][/p][p]The incremental aspect of the game is meant to be there to eventually help make you strong enough. To help with this, we've increased the max level of many of the essential upgrades in the upgrade tree. This will allow you to spend more of your tokens, so that you always have something to farm towards even when stuck. [/p][p][/p][p]We've also added more build slots to levels 4-10, to give more optionality in placing towers in a way that fits your current build. We've also made more of these slots pre-enchanted, to help give a bigger power boost. [/p][p][/p][p]As an example, here's how level 5 will look now. You'll find to extra build slots right at the enemy entrance, and two extra light enchanted slots to play around with. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]A couple upgrades are "anti-synergies" and could end up ruining your build[/h3][p]A few of the upgrades in the tree have been designed in a way to increase power in a specific way, in exchange for drawbacks in other areas. These are often trickier to fit into your build, but can help out a lot if you can find the specific synergies with it. [/p][p][/p][p]What can easily end up happening however is that you pick one of these in passing, not realising the effects they have on your specific build. After all, this is how most other incremental games are played, you're expecting to always get stronger no matter what you pick in the tree. [/p][p][/p][p]We've updated most of the upgrades that run into the risk of being anti-synergistic. As an example, the way that the Combust mechanic previously worked is that it consumed all burn ticks to instantly deal the damage and triggered an explosion. This was great in builds that focused on getting out quick bursts of damage, but completely ruined builds that were aiming to stack up a big burn over time. [/p][p][/p][p]Here's how the updated Combust works:[/p][p][/p][p]Now there's no longer any drawbacks to triggering a combust, as it is a pure damage addition to the on-going burn stack. [/p][p][/p][p]As an aside, we've changed the way burn works to always be stacking by default (and not require the "Burn Stacking" upgrade). Fire Towers were a bit unintuitive in how they worked previously. Without the burn stacking upgrade, placing a Fire Tower next to another one would have almost no effect at all to your damage, since it would only end up basically replacing the previous burn effect. [/p][p]With this new change, placing more Fire Towers should always provide a benefit. [/p][p][/p][h3]Keep the feedback coming[/h3][p]We'll continue to do what we can to make the best game possible based on the feedback we're getting. [/p][p][/p][p]We know that one of the biggest wishes is for us to add more levels. We're still very early in the planning phase for what a future content update might look like, so we can't make any promises just yet. But we're hearing you loud and clear![/p][p][/p][p]As far as continued balancing goes, our design goal with the game has been to aim for an incremental-style game but with more strategic choices than what you would usually expect. We're getting feedback both from people who really love what we're going for, but also others who would rather have a more classical incremental game where continued power growth is guaranteed no matter which choices they make. [/p][p][/p][p]We're doing the best we can to interpret this feedback into actionable improvements to the game![/p][p][/p][h3]Full Changelog[/h3]
  • [p]Increased the max level of following upgrades: Reinforced Arrows + Hardened Arrows (Arrow tower damage), Exploited Vulnerability (Vulnerability damage bonus), High-Voltage + AC/DC (Lightning tower damage), Deadly Sparks (Lightning tower crit chance), Venom Coating (additional poison stacks on hits), Detonation Power (explosion damage).[/p]
  • [p]Added more build slots and pre-enchanted slots to level 4-10.[/p]
  • [p]The "Chainblast" upgrade (chance to launch fireball on defeating an explosive enemy) can now trigger from all explosions.[/p]
  • [p]The "Burn Stacking" upgrade is now enabled by default on all burns. The previous star token upgrade now instead unlocks the ability for burn ticks to crit.[/p]
  • [p]Combust no longer consumes fire ticks, and its explosion effect has been removed. Combust now instantly deals a fixed number of ticks of burn damage, depending on what triggered it.[/p]
  • [p]"Multi-Combust" (Multicrit triggers Combust) now triggers a Combust of up to 5 ticks.[/p]
  • [p]"Disintegration Station" (enemies that damage the Outhold trigger Combust) has been changed to instead trigger a Combust of up to 15 ticks on all enemies hit by the fiery pulse emitted by "Burning Vengeance".[/p]
  • [p]"Arc Flash" (trigger combust on discharged enemies) now triggers a Combust of up to 100 ticks.[/p]
  • [p]The "Combustion Power" (increased damage on Combust explosions) upgrade has been removed.[/p]
  • [p]Applying Burn beyond 1000 tick damage now has a reduced effect. This should mostly affect endgame build that were snowballing a little too quickly after the changes above.[/p]
  • [p]"Light Arrows" (increased Arrow Tower fire rate at the cost of base damage) now reduces base damage by 5% per level (down from 10%).[/p]
  • [p]"Dancing Arrows" (increased Arrow Tower fire rate at the cost of base damage when leveling up) has been moved further down the poison branch of the tree, and now instead costs an hourglass token. It will now increase fire rate by 20% for each tower level, while reducing damage by 10%.[/p]
  • [p]"Reactor Surge" (explosions charge towers more) is now capped at 2 levels, but each level grants a 0.15 second bonus instead of 0.1.[/p]
  • [p]Reduced the explosion damage goal on the level 8 build challenge from 250k to 175k, to account for the removal of explosion damage in Combust[/p]
  • [p]The level 7 boss has had its HP and movement speed reduced.[/p]
  • [p]The level select panel will now remember which level you last had open when opening and closing it.[/p]
  • [p]The token list should now more clearly communicate that you can toggle between showing unspent / total and spent / total.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a weird game state when enabling Prestige Mode on another level and then starting level 10.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where the build challenge on level 8 wasn't tracking all explosion damage correctly[/p]
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