Order Of The Gatekeepers News

[p]I've been playing this a lot lately and got annoyed at all the ancient bugs and balance issues. Since I've got a few weeks off work for the holidays I jumped back into the code and made some massive changes.[/p][p]This game started my professional career as a game dev so coming back five years later to apply what I've learned has been really fun.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]General[/h3]

• [p]Added more robot flavor text.[/p]
• [p]Autocastable Active Items now activate when an enemy enters their Tower's Attack Range.[/p]
• [p]Fast-forward speed in Singleplayer increased from 3 -> 3.5x.[/p]
• [p]Kills by towers on Hard and Serious difficulty now provide experience to nearby towers like they do on Easy and Normal difficulties.[/p]
  • [p]Easy -> 35% of the kill XP goes to all nearby towers.[/p]
  • [p]Normal -> 25% of the kill XP goes to all nearby towers.[/p]
  • [p]Hard -> 25% of the kill XP is divided among nearby towers.[/p]
  • [p]Serious -> 20% of the kill XP is divided among nearby towers.[/p]
• [p]Experience from kills reduced by 15%.[/p]
• [p]Improved Tower Targeting Algorithm:[/p]
  • [p]No longer makes sub-optimal choices sometimes in maps like Strikethrough due to odd path shapes.[/p]
  • [p]Now takes into account Abilities for certain Towers and not just Auto-Attack range.[/p]
    • [p]Star's Active deals more damage than its Auto Attack and is treated as its true "damage range" when Towers are deciding what to attack.[/p]
    • [p]Also applied to the Volcano.[/p]
    • [p]It's possible to enable this for any Tower but not very many can "carry" so I didn't find the experience pleasant when this was applied to Towers that deal a bit of long-range damage but don't murder everything in sight.[/p]
  • [p]Towers that cannot deal Auto-Attack damage (Life Guardian, Alchemical Lab, Support Structure) are treated as having no "damage range."[/p]
  • [p]Fixed these algorithms for Mazing levels as well.[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug with Mana Motor that could lead to its buff no longer applying.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Items teleporting back to their slots if a HUD update is triggered while dragging it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed enemy gibs often not simulating their physics correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed being able to break the game by selling a Tower with a Soul Harvester in its 7th Item Slot when using the Stockpile Specialty.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the Vacuum noise playing forever if you sell it while it's mid-suck.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where enemies dying while under the effects of the Cardboard Box Tranquilizer debuff could lead to later enemies having super speed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a bug where disconnecting with a Hybrid Artillery Mine on the map could break buffs when you started another match.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Mana Motor Overdrive always providing 500 Attack Speed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed enemies/towers/presents failing to highlight when hovered sometimes.[/p]
• [p]Mazing algorithms for path calculation/targeting sped up significantly.[/p]
• [p]Massive CPU performance optimizations.[/p]
  • [p]Should see much higher framerates and better frame timings (less stutters) unless you're GPU bound or framerate capped.[/p]
• [p]Highlighting algorithms optimized for less CPU/GPU usage. Should give a bit of a framerate boost since this effect was quite heavy.[/p]

[h3]Towers[/h3]

• [p]Added a limit to Kill Bounty Bonus at 50%.[/p]
• [p]Black Hole Reduction enemy health percentage from 7 -> 4%.[/p]
• [p]Black Hole Insatiable Mass mana cost from 8 -> 10.[/p]
• [p]Corpse Flower Damage to DoT from 20 -> 10%.[/p]
• [p]Guardian Damage to Mana from 1 -> 0.5%.[/p]
• [p]Guardian Do No Harm no longer considers its own tower when abilities are cast or mana is distributed.[/p]
• [p]Opportunist Overkill chance from 15 -> 20%.[/p]
• [p]Prism Tower pathing algorithm fixed so that targeting no longer breaks.[/p]
  • [p]Previously you could get the targeting into a state where it would attack the wrong enemies, ones completely out of range, and create odd paths through towers.[/p]
• [p]Prism Focus Orb Stun Time Per Tower from 0.5 -> 0.35s.[/p]
• [p]Prism Network XP Per Bounce from 8 -> 6.[/p]
• [p]Prism Network Damage Per Bounce from 12+5%/Lvl -> 10+4%/Lvl.[/p]
• [p]Mana Motor High Compression mana cost from 4 -> 6% per tick.[/p]
• [p]Moss Engulf Damage Per Second from 140 -> 100.[/p]
• [p]Oven Sizzle Armor to Damage Multiplier from 0.8 -> 1.[/p]
• [p]Star Sunbeam now deals 15% Splash Damage in a 200 unit radius.[/p]
• [p]Star Sunbeam Damage from 125+10/Lvl -> 100+7/Lvl.[/p]

[h3]Items[/h3]

• [p]Ash of the Scholar autocast now works and will cast itself on the last chosen Tower if it's still in range.[/p]
• [p]Bonus Fee Kill Bounty Bonus from 14 -> 8%.[/p]
• [p]Rack Em Up Bounty Bonus from 17 -> 12%.[/p]
• [p]Deregulator Burst Chance from 15 -> 20%.[/p]
• [p]Invigorator Buff Chance from 25 -> 40%.[/p]
• [p]Inhibitor Duration from 8 -> 11s.[/p]
• [p]Mystic 8-Ball Mana from 3.5 -> 4.5.[/p]
• [p]Pipe of Clarity Mana Cost from 50 -> 35.[/p]
• [p]Pipe of Clarity Cooldown from 45 -> 30s.[/p]
• [p]Pollaxe Armor Reduction Chance from 15 -> 20%.[/p]
• [p]Combat Syllabus Damage to XP from 1.6 -> 2%.[/p]
• [p]Tome of Knowledge Bonus XP from 36 -> 32%.[/p]
• [p]Soul Harvester now gives Mana for kills that occur in its range OR kills by its owner even if they are out of its range.[/p]

[h3]Specialties[/h3]

• [p]Enraged Attack Speed Bonus from 85 -> 200.[/p]
• [p]Wizard Mana Bonus from 50 -> 125.[/p]
• [p]Wizard Mana Regen Bonus from 0.4 -> 0.5.[/p]
• [p]Hunter changed from 25% Bonus Damage to Bosses to Always Crits Against Bosses.[/p]
• [p]Hunter no longer has a Crit Multiplier bonus.[/p]
• [p]Hunter damage penalty to mobs from 15 -> 25%.[/p]
• [p]Timewinder now also also provides a 0.5s BAT Reduction.[/p]
• [p]Equalizer now converts all attack and spell damage to be 50% Will and 50% Magic damage.[/p]

[p] [/p][p]I left in a bug where you can win and lose at the same time if the very last enemy to leave kills you since I thought it was funny.[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]Got an email saying all Unity games built with versions 2017 or later were affected by an exploit so I put out a quick patch to fix it.[/p][p]If you're curious about the exploit you can learn more here.[/p]

I came back from the dead to make the least used specialties viable and do a bit of extra balancing.

• Early Bird starting gold bonus from 500 -> 550.
  
• Enraged attack speed bonus from 65 -> 85.
  
• Hunter bonus damage to bosses from 100% -> 125%
  
• Hunter damage to mobs penalty from 25% -> 15%.
  
• Demolisher now provides a bonus 3% crit chance across all towers.
  
• Thinner damage to bosses penalty from -20% -> -12%
  
• Timewinder attack range penalty from -100 -> -40.
  
• Timewinder buff duration penalty from -50% -> -40%.
  
• Shifter Earth Hammer damage from 325+100/lvl ->325+120/lvl.
  
• Whirlwind Bombardment damage from 205+45/lvl -> 205+60/lvl.
  
• Cactus Uproot mana cost from 125 -> 105.
  
• Life Guardian's Impotent Mercy no longer set to autocast by default.
  
• Fixed issue where dragging an item from one tower to another using the popup item context menu wouldn't work correctly for HUD Scales other than 1.
  
• Fixed every single normal map in the game having an inverted green channel.
  

As a bit of a holiday update I've put together some gameplay modifiers to change how the game plays. These can be used in either single or multiplayer modes but not the main campaign.

I hope everyone enjoys this new update!

Patch Notes:

• Added Gameplay Mutators! You can mix and match different mutators to modify the game's core rules for fun or an added challenge.
  • No Wave Delay:
    • Removes all the time between waves so that players have to deal with a constant stream of enemies.
  • Cannot Buy Items:
    • Ever wonder if you could win a match with just towers?
      
    • Adds one extra starting faction point.
  • One Health Mode:
    • If a single robot escapes, players immediately lose the match.
  • Enemies Drop Items:
    • Not only will robots drop potions, but normal items too!
      
    • Gold gain reduced by 90% with this mutator active.
      
    • Combine costs removed from all items in this mode, allowing players to build Combination items out of Components they receive.
• Endless Mode is now a mutator.
  
• Added new Achievements for completing challenges with the new Mutators!
  
• Holding the "Show Paths & Build Locations" hotkey (Default: Left Shift) now shows a quick readout of a tower's items as you mouse over them.
  
• Moving an item from one tower to another now shows the items currently on the tower you're trying to move the item to.
  
• When dragging an item from one tower to another, dropping the item on top of a specific item on the other tower will swap them.
  
• Optimized Shop Menu first open to have less of a stutter.
  
• Fixed Time Machine O Kosmos effect not having screen shake for multiplayer clients.

Patch Notes:

• Time Machine Fast Forward buff cooldown reduction from 2.5+0.25s/Lvl to 2.0+0.2s/Lvl
  
• Vacuum Turbocharge passive mana spent to supercharge conversion rate from 1.4% to 0.35%
  
• Fixed moving Towers being broken in certain non-mazing levels.