Hello! 30XX Patch 0.40 introduces Vanilla Challenges to 30XX - seeded score Challenges without any modifiers, for those who just want the standard 30XX experience in their Scoretimes.
We're also tamping down a bit both on endgame enemy power and density in the lategame, alongside player power scaling, in an effort to make the endgame feel a little more under control for both you and your enemies. We consider these efforts a work in progress, so please let us know what you think!
We're doing this in a few ways.
On the enemy side - we're reducing both the general density of enemies later in the game to avoid situations where powerful Gamma enemies spawn very close to one another, removing counterplay other than "offscreen your enemies or be immune". This will affect both general enemy density and upgraded enemy density (so sometimes even later in the game, you'll still see Alpha enemies in packs). We're also curbing some obnoxious Gamma enemy behaviors so that they're still challenging, but have less potential for cheapness. These changes will also slightly affect the midgame, but not by much.
On the player side, we're taking an iterative approach here, but the general vibe's that we're lowering player damage scaling late in the game. Earlier this year, we added lots of powerful new Augs that give the player alternate ways to scale damage, usually along the lines of +20-30%, but occasionally much more (Thrill of Battle's +50% at the start of a boss fight, Coup de Grace's +100% potential Power bonus, etc). As of 0.40, benefits from normal Augs will stack additively, instead of multiplicatively - this means that the benefits from these items will be added together (+100% +50% = +150% damage, or 250% total) instead of multiplicatively (200% * 150% = 300% damage total, or +200%). (We'd love your feedback on this - we know it's a big change in some cases.) Some individual items affected by this change will also have their numbers updated so they don't lose relevance. We're also making Choice Machine choices a little more consistent - we're taking a stab at making the items selected by a Choice Machine a little closer together in overall power level - this'll probably take us a little polish to get right.
As a note: Prototype-driven multipliers are still multiplicative (Burn for Glory, Charging Force).
We're also taking an overdue look at Nina having her shots on screen limited. Part of Nina's gameplay should involve pressing Attack at the right time - for most of 30XX's development, this hasn't really been the case. To compensate a bit, we're looking at some of Nina's less useful Primary Weapons, and buffing them. We'd love to hear your thoughts on these changes.
As a second note: all of these changes are very experimental - they don't take into account Entropy Conditions - we'll likely rein in the enemy-HP-related Conditions if these changes stick.
We've also adjusted the shop costs of most Augs (usually up a bit). Some very powerful, undervalued Augs (Quantum Spook, Core Bulkener, Thorned Hull, Juiced Reserves) cost a good bit more than before.
Also - I'm out of town through this weekend, so other than super-major-must-fix crashes, any hotfixes/etc will come around Monday.
Thaks for playing!
GAME CHANGES & FIXES:
- Updated enemy placement logic, aimed at reducing challenging enemy density later in the game. These are big changes, so we'll be keeping a close eye on them.
- Enemies placed near other upgraded variants of enemies are now less likely to be upgraded themselves.
- Groups of enemies that are not super threatening while in alpha form or meant to be taken out as a group by a single charged attack (generally, enemies with 25 HP or less) will now *either* remain as a group of alphas, or one of them will upgrade to a higher variant - not both. (No more groups of Beta/Gamma Angle Bolters in Dustria.)
- This change likely lowers enemy density in general - we'll keep an eye out in case we've overdone it.
- By popular demand, Vanilla Challenges return! Vanilla challenges are like 30XX's existing Flavored challenges, but they have no modifiers of any kind applied. (This is partially an experiment - we're not sure yet what other challenge types should exist by 1.0 - we're curious to see how much each type gets played.)
- Removed the two Clover prototypes from Challenges.
- Modified the behavior of several enemies:
- Burning Temple: Snomps now spit two waves of blue fire, instead of three waves of very-fast normal fire. They now throw fire on death, like Beta Snomps do. Bzzomb (Bee) base HP down to 10/15/25, from 10/20/50.
- Echocave: Shieldfaces now only retaliate as Gammas, and speed up when their shield is struck in Beta/Gamma form. (This may make Betas too unthreatening, but we didn't really like the laser retaliate on the Gamma.)
- Penumbra: Sunsphere Beta attacks are a little lighter. Changed Gamma attack from laser to a two-wave attack that fires in 8 directions, then directly at the player. Acolyte attack is a little more threatening as an Alpha. Acolyte Wildfire spread gravity mechanics slightly tweaked.
- Deepverse: Bouncy now ignores drop-through platforms when slamming downward. Fixed up smashing logic a bit to be more consistent.
- Revised Nina's attack limits.
- Nina is now limited to 3 active shots on screen by default, like she was in 20XX.
- Shots are "active" if they aren't currently expiring (due to hitting a wall, an enemy they don't pierce, or timing out).
- Nina's Primary Weapons that modify her shot pattern are only concerned with the "center", straight-ahead firing shot when determining how many shots are currently on screen. (So no matter what combination of items she has, Nina has three full waves of shots on screen.)
- In practice, this only affects Nina's shots from more than about half a screen away. It means she's capable of more damage up close, since her shots will hit enemies/walls before she'd reach the shot limit.)
- Aiming Gear's cooldown has been removed, and it now uses a similar shot limit system. In addition to Nina's checks, Aiming Gear also doesn't count as an "active" shot if it's been on the screen for longer than a second (since Aiming Gear often rolls around slopes for a long time). This means the ability is spammable again, albeit in short bursts.
- Marksman's Might now increases Nina's shot limit by 2, instead of its previous effect. This also affects Aiming Gear.
- Buffed some of Nina's underperforming Weapons:
- Arc Beam now deals 12 base damage (up from 10) if it hits after the apex of its arc. This applies to all modified Arc Beam projectiles, too (if the projectile is moving vertically in line with Nina's current gravity direction).
- Retrobeam's backwards projectile now deals 12 damage (up from 10).
- Toy Beam no longer reduces damage dealt. It still costs -5 CP to use, and still causes attacks to be inaccurate.
- Wave Beam reduced back to 10 base damage. It still has its wall-piercing property - we may flip that around in a future patch.
- Counterstrike damage bonus increased to 50% (from 30%).
- Rage Circuit damage bonus increased to 50% (from 20%).
- Regenerative Plating now restores 4 HP immediately and per level (up from 2).
- Fatal Fury now costs 1 Max HP plus one per Fatal Fury copy you already have. (This means it'll cost a lot more to pick it up 5 times, unlike now, where it's a very powerful no-brainer.)
- Grandmaster (Ace weapon) now gains 50% damage per charge-level, down from 100%. The finisher attack is unchanged. It's probably still way too powerful against Bosses, but one thing at a time.
- Lara now has a 0.75 swing timer (up from 0.5 sec).
- Hoarder's Might is now 1 ATK/PWR per 30 nuts held (up from 20). It caps at +10.
- Consuming Fury ATK/PWR reduced to 1 per level (from 2).
- Thorned Hull and Juiced Reserves are now once-per-run Augs (they'll only spawn once).
- Fixed a bug causing Armatort's Pound to sometimes work on half-charged attacks. (This should normally only happen with the Resonant Buster part.)
- Fixed a bug causing Lucavi's Unleash to trigger boss iframes on the first hit. (This makes the attack work properly on Bosses again.)
- Geardash (Aiming Gear + Crushing Void) damage increased by 50%.
- Unstoppable Force contact damage increased by 150%.
- Adjusted shop costs. In general, items cost a bit more than before.
- Glory Zone Choice Machines will now always grant a choice between two of the same Core type (Two sets of Boots, two Helms, etc).
- Resonated Dracopent's Bound now enhances the second jump instead of enabling a third jump.
- Nutstack can no longer be rerolled.
- Boss Health no longer scales with Rising Tide.
- Angle Bolter (alpha) HP reduced to 25 (from 30).
- Angle Bolters (all types) now act on the global chunk timer, but still only fire if a player is within range. (This will prevent the issue where they're slightly out of sync when approaching a group.)
- Removed a handful of useless Augs from the Mega Mode pool.
- Fixed Unyielding Wave having strategic timings on Zen Primus and Watergrav's Beeg Frog that'd lock their AI routines.
- Fixed a timing error that could cause certain timing mechanics to desync when returning from a Glory Zone.
- Boots Guardian now has a proper wind-up time before his dash attack starts.
- Void Double no longer changes the camera at all.
- Fixed a crash involving Heavy Juice.