Core Balance Changes

Since the early access release of Element TD 2, we've been polishing the individual balance of towers and creep types, and we think we've gotten that down pretty well. However, some deeper core issues have been brought up numerous times in the past months, and in order to fix them, we'll ultimately have to mess with some of the core balance.

Below is a preview of what you can expect!

Interest Upgrades

Depending on your skill level, the power of an Interest Upgrade of +0.75% Interest can be anywhere from "completely useless" to "literal god tier", netting you +100k gold (or more). Increasing or decreasing this value doesn't fix anything, and the ridiculous amount of gold you can get from it is nearly unstoppable in multiplayer without playing on Very Hard or Insane.

It's unfriendly to new players and impossible to balance. As much as we'd like to retain the spirit of the good ol' days from the WC3 version, Interest Upgrades have to go.

However, we'll be replacing it with Income Upgrades. What this will do is, when you clear a wave, you'll gain gold based on the Total Wave Bounty. You can get a maximum of 2 Income Upgrades:

• 1 Income: Gain gold equal to 12% of the Total Wave Bounty
• 2 Income: Gain gold equal to 24% of the Total Wave Bounty

The above numbers are estimates and we may change them over the course of testing. Suffice to say, this new solution makes it so:

• If you're new and don't know what you're doing, Income won't be a useless upgrade
• If you do know what you're doing, you can bank some extra Interest off it, just not to the extent of piercing the heavens with mountains upon mountains of gold.

Arrow & Cannon Abuse

Even though Level 1 Elemental Towers are more powerful, Arrow & Cannon Towers end up getting used more because they're effectively free. Thanks to their full refund value, not only do they result in a zero-cost defense, you get more and more Interest. Within the first 5 waves, you can get a 100 gold lead over other players, and that only snowballs further throughout the game.

We don't intend on removing this outright, but as is, it's overpowered. So instead of giving you a full refund:

• Arrow & Cannon Towers will sell for 74 Gold each, down from 75 Gold.
• If you're doing buy/sell abuse, you'll still get a net gain (of about +0.5% instead of +2%), but not by anywhere near as much as before.

Just to be clear, all towers in Random will still sell for 100%, including Arrow & Cannon Towers.

Gold from Wave 56 Onwards

Countless times, we've been asked the question "why do you stop getting gold after Wave 55?" Our answer has always been that at that point, progression stops, and whatever you have left is a test of your defense until your eventual demise. However, it's a stark contrast in playstyle, going from actively building... to watching your defense get overrun by the endless boss.

Ultimately, we still want it to end. However, bounty from kills will no longer stop after Wave 55. This way, you'll continue to play actively up until the point of your demise. Some notes about this:

• The amount of gold you get per wave won't continue to go up, so each wave will net the same amount of gold you get from Wave 55, which is roughly 9000 gold.
• HP Scaling of the endless boss waves will increase from +20% per wave to +30% per wave.

As for Interest, that will still remain dormant. In fact, we'll be pushing it back so you stop getting Interest the moment you clear Wave 55.

Essence Upgrades

Level 4 Singles & Periodic Tower are powerful towers... but when you only get 1 off the Essence Upgrade, it's incredibly underwhelming compared to the power of getting an Element. In Random especially, getting one can be rather frustrating; doubly so if you get random'd a second one.

Instead of buffing these uber towers, we'll be making some changes to the upgrade instead:

• First off, getting the Essence Upgrade will no longer be free. It'll summon a boss with Composite Armor, and it'll be a bit stronger than a Level 3 Element.
• Then, when you kill the boss, you'll get 2 Essences instead of just 1.

Hopefully, these changes will make the Essence Upgrade much more appealing, and help highlight the value of Level 4 Singles & Periodic Tower.

Cursed Creeps

In an effort to counteract Level 3 Buff Rushing (both in Solo/FFA and especially stacking it in Teams/Co-op), Cursed creeps are getting some lovely tweaks:

• AoE reduced from 350 to 250. This means instead of affecting a 5x5 area, it'll now only affect a 3x3 area. However...
• In addition to reducing attack speed, Cursed will now instantly wipe Blacksmith & Well Buffs as well as nuke Trickery Clones.

Tower Changes

Although you should expect the usual bout of tweaks in regards to specific towers, we're also messing with the costs a little bit.