Version 0.44 is here, and with it, a new map, new ways to play, bots to trash, and a host of other features, fixes, and improvements! As this patch does include balance changes, including layout tweaks to some of our maps, Leaderboards have been reset.
Read on below for the full details of the patch notes!
New Map: Temple
It's fairly compact, symmetrical, and features more trees than our actual Forest map. Length-wise, it clocks in the same length as Autumn & Desert, so don't take it lightly!
Duel Mode
Both players are in the same area. On one side, your creeps spawn, and on the other side, the opponent's creeps spawn. The goal of this game is to kill the opponent's creeps while keeping yours alive, using both Towers and powerful new Abilities.
When an opponent's creep passes by, your towers will shoot and damage it, just like in the normal game. However, when one of your creeps passes by, your towers will shoot and heal it. On top of competing for build locations, you'll have to constantly adapt playstyle to counter the opponent.
Additionally, you have a pair of two abilities you can use. Each time you use one, you're given a new ability at random after a cooldown. Currently, there are 5 Abilities in the game:
- Speed Up: All of your creeps are sped up by 50% for 15 seconds. 90 Second Cooldown
- Rejuvenation: All of your creeps are healed by 50% of their Maximum Health. 90 Second Cooldown
- Mega Creep: Spawn a Mega Creep from the current wave with 500% Health, which reduces Lives by 5 instead of 1. 60 Second Cooldown
- Frost Zone: Decrease the Attack Speed of all enemy towers in an area by 50% for 15 seconds. Also prevents them from being sold. 60 Second Cooldown
- Lockdown: Sell and full refund all towers in an area, preventing anyone from building there for 60 seconds. 120 Second Cooldown
In order to play Duel Mode, go to the Duel Mode tab, select your settings, and hit Find Game. Just like hosting a lobby, this'll trigger a Game Notification, prompting anyone to answer your challenge.
New Features
- You can now play against Bots in Singleplayer!
- Up to 3 Bots can be added to your game.
- If you're experienced with the game, odds are, you're going to trash these Bots. However, if you're new and relatively inexperienced, it gives you a chance to improve your skills in an offline environment and potentially learn from them.
- We'll be improving and expanding upon this feature with each patch.
- Interest can now be disabled!
- For those of you that want to play the game without buy/sell abuse, you can turn off the Interest and make the game a match of pure knowledge and strategy.
- Turbo Mode has been added!
- Multiplayer feel too sluggish without access to Timescale Options? Fret not; just turn on Turbo Mode, and force the game's Timescale to x2!
Map Updates
Every Map can now be either 1 Path or 2 Paths!
- By default, this is set to 1 Path, even if the map itself supports two lanes.
- Kick it to 2 Paths, and single-lane maps change to Purple Portals, while two lanes add a second set of Blue & Red Portals.
- Also, this increases the wave timer between each wave by 4 Seconds, meaning it's actually possible to play Extreme on 2 Paths without instantly melting now.
Additionally, the Desert & Winter maps have been updated:
Desert
Extra build areas were added to the Desert Map to block off parts of the path creeps weren't really walking on. In addition, the portals have been tweaked such that it's actually symmetrical this time.
Winter
The Winter Map has been overhauled with a new layout. Although we want this map to be difficult, the previous layout was unfair to many of the game's towers. With this update, it's still difficult, but it's much friendlier to most builds.
Fixes & Improvements
- Further improvements have been made to server stability, resulting in less pauses, reduced input lag, and hopefully no more spontaneous disconnects.
- Creep healthbar color changed to red.
- Cleaned up Lobby UI.
- F1 hotkey functionality tweaked:
- Pressing it once simply selects your Builder.
- Pressing it twice will center your camera on your Builder.
- Bringing up the menu in-game now shows you the current game's difficulty and settings.
- If you're the last player alive in a Multiplayer Game, the game will tell you that you've won, giving you a prompt to continue playing or exit to the Main Menu.
- Camera bounds have been expanded just slightly.
- You can now zoom out way further than before.
-- Beware, zooming out to the new maximum can be performance heavy. - The game's shadows have been improved, particularly at a distance, meaning trees no longer look like garbage when viewing them from afar.
- Fixed a bug where failing to host or join a lobby would kill the UI, forcing you to Alt+F4 to get out.
- Fixed a bug where players quitting and rejoining a lobby would cause the playerIndex to get screwed over, messing up the game and the replay.
- Fixed a bug where you couldn't change sound settings in the Main Menu.
Balance
- You can now read up on the same charts that I use to balance the game here:
- Score Multipliers updated:
- Full Length multiplier now starts at 5.5, degrading by 0.1 per minute: -- If you clear the game in 30 Minutes, you'll have a score multiplier of x2.5 -- If you clear the game in 45 Minutes, you'll have a score multiplier of x1 -- If you clear the game in 55 Minutes, you'll have a score multiplier of x0
- Short multiplier starts at 4.8
- Extra Short multiplier starts at 3.5
- Light consecutive damage bonus reduced from 8 / 48 / 288 / 2880 to 6 / 36 / 216 / 2160
- Darkness damage bonus on death reduced from 15% to 12%
- Water damage increased from 70 / 420 / 2520 / 25200 to 75 / 450 / 2700 / 27000
-- Bonus damage reduced from 50% to 40% - Fire damage increased from 24 / 144 / 864 / 8640 to 25 / 150 / 900 / 9000
- Nature damage increased from 70 / 420 / 2520 / 25200 to 75 / 450 / 2700 / 27000
- Electricity now requires at least one other creep in range in order to bounce
-- Attack Rate reduced from 1 to 0.66
-- Damage increased from 200 / 800 / 3200 to 300 / 1200 / 4800
-- Bounce range increased from 900 to 1150
-- Number of bounces increase from 4 to 6 - Vapor damage bonus per creep reduced from 14% to 10%
-- Damage increased from 150 / 600 / 2400 to 180 / 720 / 2880 - Arcane damage reduced from 650 / 2600 / 10400 to 600 / 2400 / 9600
- Atom damage reduced from 270 / 1080 / 4320 to 260 / 1040 / 4160
- Money extra bounty bonus increased from 30% / 45 to 35% / 50%
- Runic ability AoE increased from 175 to 200
And that's it for this week's mega patch! Next week, look forward to an early version of Co-op Mode, complete with a prototype map. It won't look as fancy as the rest of our maps, but it'll be fully playable!
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