Hello! Today's 30XX 0.21.0 patch introduces Daily and Weekly Challenges to 30XX! These new Challenges shake the rules of the game up a bit, and give you the chance to test your mettle against your friends. (The Leaderboards are global, so you can also test your mettle against people who aren't your friends yet.) We've also made a bunch of visual updates, fixed a few bugs, and added a few Power interactions with level mechanics. (Way, way more to come there.)
Daily Challenges can be played once per day - you've only got one shot with today's ruleset, and that's it. You'll get points for destroying enemies and beating bosses, and after each level, you'll receive bonuses for avoiding damage (the "efficiency bonus") and for time remaining on your timer. When the run's over, your score'll be uploaded to today's Leaderboard - and if you finished the run, your time will be entered, too. (Some folks gotta go fast.)
Weekly Challenges reset every Wednesday (in the wee hours of the morning in the US), and can be played as many times as you like. If you get a better score or a faster time, it'll update your Leaderboard scores.
Both kinds of Challenges shake up the base difficulty a bit by giving you a special Challenge Boon for the run, and turning on a few Entropy Conditions to keep the run spicy. Our intent is that Challenges are overall similar in difficulty to full base runs on average - though some will certainly be easier, and some harder. Permanent upgrades are locked to a fixed set in Challenges, as well (so they'll naturally be a bit tougher for most players).
Challenges are only available in Standard Mode - at least for the time being. All Challenges have a fixed RNG seed - this means all players trying a given Challenge will see the same level order, items within a level, and so on. They can be played solo or co-op (locally or online), and solo & co-op play have separate seeds & leaderboards. (If you play the Daily alone, you can play the co-op Daily later with a friend, and vice versa.)
Note: Some enemies intentionally do not grant score. At present, these include most boss summons, Highvault Tornado Machines, and Penumbra Void Orbs/Megavoids.
Additionally - our seventh level, Dustria, is shaping up nicely - we're getting pretty close to releasing it! We're working on the best way to announce & promote Dustria's release, so there's a chance that Dustria's patch doesn't align with our normal 3 week schedule. (We'll make sure the in-game timer accurately reflects this if that's the direction we head in.)
Thanks for playing!
GAME CHANGES & FIXES:
- Daily and Weekly challenges are now live! See above for how they work.
- Lasers with a warning duration now have an appropriate "tell" visual instead of a full beam that just doesn't hurt you for a moment.
- Added some eyes on Absolution's Phase 2 enemies so they're a little more "shoot me!" obvious. Tightened up the timings on this phase - after destroying one, the next in the sequence will now appear after a fixed amount of time instead of running its activation timer out first.
- Absolution's void circles now last 20 seconds (down from 30). They can now also be destroyed by certain Powers.
- Rerolling Weapon drops now properly rerolls into a new Weapon (instead of into a Core).
- Updated explosion effects. Moved explosion effects *behind* enemies, the player, and projectiles. Let us know what you think! The ordering should have been that way all along for visual clarity's sake, but there are probably a few places it looks a little weird.
- Echocave's Crystal Shooter twins will no longer warp into solid objects.
- Updated Frail Glory visuals. Frail Glory now also explodes if the crown touches lava. It's frail, after all.
- The Pause screen now properly displays information on the current level, as well as any active Challenge Boons or Entropy Conditions.
- Added a warning blink when Deepverse's Laser Platforms are about to disappear.
- Added a new animation for Highvault's Jump Zones that should make it much clearer that the player can jump again.
- Updated Deepverse miniboss visuals.
- Updated Raijin Call bolt visual.
- Attacks that immune against an enemy (shielded enemies, invulnerable enemies) now properly display a "blocked" animation.
- (Experimental) Sound Alarms in Echocave now display attack blocks (and destroy non-piercing projectiles) instead of shots just passing through them without effect. Additionally, Sound Alarms can now be destroyed by a certain Nina Power.
- Fixed a minor visual error with Deepverse Boltpairs that stay on permanently.