Welcome to yet another week of "no seriously, where's Chapter 3", where once again, we deliver a patch that doesn't actually contain more of the Campaign. Don't worry, it's coming for real next patch, just in time to clash with Cyberpunk 2077, because we're absolute geniuses complete idiots.
Anywho, in the meantime, we're bringing up a new batch of Achievements, more fun Cosmetics, a bunch of improvements and fixes, as well as updates to War Mode! Read on for the full notes:
We heard you like UFOs, so we put some UFOs in your UFOs so you can UFO while you UFO!
Achievements & Cosmetics
- Achievements:
- First War - Win 1 Game of War Mode
- War Veteran - Win 5 Games of War Mode
- Master of War - Win 25 Games of War Mode
- Elemental Diversity - Cast all six War Mode Abilities at least once in a single game in War Mode
- Total Stasis - Catch 20 creeps in stasis with a single Dimensional Rift in War Mode
- Annihilation - Blow up 10 of your Opponent's Towers at once with a single Nuke in War Mode
- Mega Killer - Kill a total of 10 Mega Creeps in War Mode games
- Full Counter - Decrease the opponent's lives by 15 in a single wave in War Mode
- Domination - Win a War Mode game without losing a single life
- Win Streak - Win 3 Ranked Games in a row
- Cosmetics:
- New Builder - Burning Skull
- New Builder - Trident Fighter
- New Hat - Trident Hat
- New Trail - Lightning Trail
- New Trail - Path of Ice
- New Trail - UFO Squad
- New Wings - Snakes of Wrath
- New Wings - UFO Guards
Improvements
- On/Off Modifiers in Singleplayer & Lobby settings changed from dropdowns to checkboxes.
- Essence in the top-right HUD now lists "Spent / Max".
- It'll still list the actual Essence Upgrade Picks in the Scoreboard, just like before. This is for distinguishing the total number of Essences you have and are capable of getting.
- In the Campaign, the wave display at the top now lists the total number of waves in the Mission.
- Friendly indicators replaced with a colored outline, instead of a big blocky shield.
- There is now a sound for when an enemy leaks, provided your viewpoint is near or on the respective portal.
- Minor visual improvements & optimizations on several maps.
Lamps now properly glow on all maps, at no performance cost either!
Bug Fixes
- Fixed drag-building letting you bypass the Tower Limit in Teams, Co-op, War, & Team War Modes.
- Going past the threshold for an Achievement will now award you properly for it.
- This is retroactive, so if you're missing Achievements from this bug, they should be awarded properly upon booting up the game.
- As lobby host, you can no longer input any commands after the countdown starts, preventing you from doing last second changes to the settings or last second player switching (which broke the game previously).
- If someone quits a lobby, it'll now unready everyone else, which fixes a bug where games could start preemptively.
- Fixed new players in a lobby showing up as Red in the chat before they type anything.
- Fixed a bug in Campaign where loading a checkpoint wouldn't reset the clock, thereby making the speed clear Achievements an absolute pain to get.
- Fixed a bug where, if you joined a lobby via notification while you were in-game, the lobby would be displayed incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug where, if you played Boss Hunt length, and then a game on a different length, the Boss Score indicators in the top-right would appear from the start of the game and remain there the whole game.
War Updates
- Hyper Boost duration reduced from 5 to 2 seconds
- Speed boost increased from 100% / 133% / 200% to 200% / 266% / 400%
- Frost Zone duration increased from 15 / 20 / 30 to 30 / 40 / 60 seconds
- AoE reduced from 600 to 300
- Rejuvenation heal reduced from 50% to 25% / 33% / 50%
- Cooldown rescaled from 150 / 125 / 75 to 120 seconds
- Spawn Mega HP reduced from 1000% to 400% / 533% / 800%
- Cooldown rescaled from 150 / 125 / 75 to 150 seconds
- Movement speed increased from 50% to 75%
- Long War option added:
- Increases the starting lives from 50 to 100
- For Team War, this is now the default option
- Team War Wins stat added
- Hostile indicator size reduced, should no longer badly obscure towers.
- Fixed a bug where Elemental Bosses were being affected by Hyper Boost & Rejuvenation.
- Fixed a bug where having a Mega Creep out while someone uses Dimensional Rift on the last creeps of a wave would stall it, requiring said creeps to die before next wave would start.
Now you can blend in with the terrain! If it's the right map...
What's Next?
Next week, the long awaited Chapter 3 will finally release! We were trying to get it out before the almighty Cyberpunk 2077 releases, but that's looking extremely unlikely. So, if for whatever reason you're not playing Cyberpunk next weekend, know that we'll have your back with 7 new missions of content. It doesn't sound like much, but in reality, the total length eclipses the first 2 Chapters combined! Plus there'll be new Specializations to try out.
After Chapter 3 releases next weekend, we'll be working on the next balance patch. Numerous folks have noted various problems with the game's current balance, and fear not - we're well aware of them, so expect the silly 2 Element & 6 Element builds to no longer automatically dominate, and more love for 4 & 5 Element builds. There'll also be more juicy surprises in said patch, so look forward to it!
Jingle Jam
If you're not aware, we are participating in Jingle Jam this year! As a result, you may notice a surge in players over the next few weeks, especially tomorrow on Saturday, December 5th, when Yogscast will be livestreaming Element TD 2 on Twitch! Stream runs from 8pm to 11pm UTC, so stop on by and show your support!