Version 0.58 - Hats on Towers!

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold - Hats on Towers:

Introducing the first Tower Defense ever to let you stick hats on towers. Because we can!

In addition, this patch also features a few new Cosmetics, a dangerous No Sell Mode, updates for Duel Mode, numerous quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, balance updates, and more!

Features

• Hats on Towers!
  • Hats on demand! Customize each of your towers with a different hat. Just go to the Customize menu, strap on your hat, and become a Valve employee practitioner of hats!

• In the Cosmetics Preview Pane, right-click will now rotate around the Builder/Towers.
  
• 3 Cosmetics Added!:
  • New Builder: Ghost of a Chance - Requires Level 40
  • New Hat: Pumpkin - Requires Level 25
  • New Hat: Ghosty Pal - Requires Level 65

• No Sell Mode has been added!
  • Turn this on to prevent anyone from selling any of their towers, and making Buy/Sell Abusers cry. Or anyone that makes mistakes, really. Good luck not making mistakes!
  • Note, since Interest is no longer as silly as it used to be, this straight up replaces the No Interest modifier. More Modifiers is fun and all, but we try to avoid redundant ones.

• 1 New Achievement:
  • It Was All Skill - Beat the game on Very Hard + Random + No Sell + 2-Path in an FFA game, on any map

• Our Discord has been updated with a #games-hosted channel:
  • Anytime anyone hosts a game, a post will be made here, telling you who hosted, as well as the settings.
  • That way, you'll be notified of games being hosted even you don't have Element TD 2 open!

The Main Menu backdrop has been given a slightly festive makeover.

Improvements

• Scaling for Co-op has been applied:
  • If you're playing with 1-4 Players, it'll only spawn 4 Paths now.
  • If you're playing with 5-8 Players, it'll spawn all 8 Paths, and you'll start with 200 Lives instead.

• Co-op Starting Gold increased by roughly 20%.
  
• If you're playing Teams, Co-op, or Duel Modes, there is now a limit to the number of towers you can place, equal to the (# of Total Spots) / (# of Players):
  • This was primarily done to reduce griefing. In most cases, you won't notice this.

• On the Leaderboard, you can now filter the rankings by Global, Self, & Friends!
  
• The Customize button is now hidden when you're on the Lobby, preventing certain menu hijinks.
  
• Camera Rotate hotkeys are no longer backwards.
  • Page Up/Down now control vertical rotation, while Home/End control horizontal rotation.

• Within the first 5 Waves of a game, Eliminations no longer count for XP & Achievements. RIP abuse shenanigans.
  
• Game Notifications now list the actual player that hosted.
  
• Game Notifications now also list what Region it's hosted on.
  
• Pressing F9 to hide the UI will now hide the Builder Select Circle as well as Elemental Boss Nametags.
  
• Player Nametags have been raised, they should no longer overlap most builders.
  
• Increased how close you can zoom in.
  

Bug Fixes

• Attempt number #9000 at fixing Campaign Unlock Points not transferring from saves.
  • If you're still running into an issue where you cannot progress in the Campaign because you have way less Unlock Points than you should, please let us know.

• Fixed XP Bar blocking input on the Unlock Stuff menu, even when disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug where Howitzer's Heavy Cannons was applying the multiplier twice. Whoops.
  
• Fixed Tower Select UI in Campaign not displaying Specialization icons.
  
• Fixed a bug where Audio Settings were resetting themselves.
  
• Fixed a bug in Boss Hunt Length where the Essence Pick Upgrade was giving you 4 Essences instead of 2.
  

Duel Mode Updates

• New Duel Mode ability: Dimensional Rift:
  • Places all creeps affected in stasis, preventing them from taking damage. It also removes them from the current wave, meaning they can carry into the next wave.

• Spawn Mega has been rescaled:
  • HP increased from x5 to x10
  • Lives taken increased from 5 to 10
  • It now moves at half the speed

• Lockdown AoE reduced from 400 to 300
  
• Fixed hostile indicators not showing up
  
• Fixed creeps remaining at the end of a Duel Mode game
  
• Fixed abilities not being recorded in Duel Mode replays
  

Its VFX may be prettier, but its effect has been slam dunked by the nerfbat. Git gud, folks.

Balance

• As usual, the Leaderboard has been reset.
• Reverted the Focus Targeting changes from 0.57:
  • The only towers that focus targets down now are Light, Atom, Infernal & Flooding.

• Arrow damage increased from 45 to 50
  • Projectile speed also increased 25%

• Light consecutive damage reduced from 5 / 30 / 180 / 1800 to 3 / 18 / 108 / 1080
  
• Atom damage increased from 280 / 1120 / 4480 to 300 / 1200 / 4800
  
• Poison rescaled:
  • Damage-per-second reduced from 70 / 280 / 1120 to 50 / 200 / 800
  • Duration increased from 10 to 14 seconds

• Ice rescaled:
  • Damage reduced from 750 / 3000 / 12000 to 525 / 2100 / 8400
  • Attack Speed increased from 1 to 1.5

• Infernal damage increased from 650 / 2600 / 10400 to 700 / 2800 / 11200
  
• Mushroom damage increased from 110 / 440 / 1760 to 115 / 460 / 1840
  
• Life adjusted:
  • Damage increased from 800 / 3200 / 12800 to 1250 / 5000 / 20000
  • Attack Speed reduced from 1 to 0.66
  • Number of kills needed to gain a life changed from 6 / 4 / 2 to 15 / 10 / 5

• Howitzer damage increased from 165 / 660 / 2640 to 170 / 680 / 2720
  
• Laser damage increased from 4200 / 16800 to 4500 / 18000
  
• Astral damage reduced from 1800 / 7200 to 1600 / 6400
  
• Runic damage increased from 1000 / 4000 to 1200 / 4800
  
• Haste rescaled:
  • Attack Speed increased from 1 to 1.5
  • Damage increased from 900 / 3600 to 1000 / 4000
  • Projectile Speed increased by 25%
  • Attack Speed gain per attack reduced from 10% to 7%. Still caps at 6 attacks per second.

• Money damage increased from 5500 / 22000 to 6000 / 24000
  

Well well well...

Whew, that ended up being a lot more than we expected! Strike fear into the hearts of your enemies as you plaster Tophats and Pumpkins onto your towers. Make your friends regret making mistakes in No Sell Mode. And if you haven't played Duel Mode before, grab a friend and give it a shot; expect more improvements for it down-the-road.

Speaking of stuff coming down-the-road...

Where's Ranked Mode?

We're actually close to releasing this one! We were trying to get it done for this week, but it's taking more time than expected; meanwhile, everything else planned for the Ranked patch was done, so we decided to release Version 0.58 now. Expect Ranked to arrive in Version 0.59 next week!

Where's Chapter 3?

Admittedly, this one's kind of behind schedule. At the moment, I can only say it'll release by the end of November. However, I can guarantee you that when it does arrive, it'll be packing some surprises!

When's the Launch Date?

Well, after Ranked Mode & Chapter 3, we do have a Chapter 4 planned, among a few more things. However, compared to what's come before, it's really not too much. That said, next month, we'll be announcing the official release date for Element TD 2. Look forward to it!