Hey guys! The first major update for Goo Gladiators is here and we have a TON of new content. I'll try to keep it short, but its a lot of stuff so feel free to skip around, anyways lets get into it.
Private Matches
Ever wanted to play against your friends in real time?? Now you can!! Private matches are here, with its first game mode: 'Last Goo Standing.' In this mode you go through a normal 'arena' build facing off against other teams in your match. As the name implies its a free for all with each player getting 5 losses before they are eliminated! This is a super new feature so please let me know if you have any weird issues with it or any feedback on how to make it even better.
Goopendium
BY FAR our most highly requested feature was to have some sort of in game guide for how to mutate the goos. Well now we have one, The Goopendium. Once you discover a goo it will appear here, You can view the Goopendium from the main menu or while in the goo labs.
New Spooky Goos!
We have a new spooky group of Goos to add to your team! Some spooky Halloween Goos!! As well as some new Goo Skins.
GoOoOo
GoOoOo has a unique mechanic where it can be mutated from ANY goo. If you poison any goo it will be sent to the afterlife in the form of GoOoOo. It will maintain any stats it kept in its old form and gain some new abilities... First, it only takes 1/2 damage on all things hitting it, however as the goo is a spirit it can no longer hold or use items!
Candance
Candance is ready to collect some candy! She gets HP whenever a friendly goo faints. The HP will be equal to the 1/2 ATK of any goo that faints. She can get pretty beefy if she is positioned smartly!
Stirkal
Stirkal is another Fire goo. Fire goos are all about Damage, as such Stirkal has a way to get a lot of ATK. Each time Stirkal attacks he increases his attack by 33%. (So if it had 9 ATK and hits something it will get +3 ATK after its first attack). If you manage to keep him alive he can get some pretty high attack values!
New Skins
We have also added some new goo skins. The witch hat is automatically unlocked if you get the spooky goos!
Gang Leaderboards
Want to be the best gang??? Now you can see what gangs have the most wins. Here are the current rankings at the time of this update coming out. Stay tuned for more gang features in the coming months!
Balance Changes
As this is the first balance update we have done since public release some things to note.
#1: Our balance philosophy is buff weaker goos before nerfing stronger goos.
#2: The leaderboards do not reset.
#3: All goo Teams will reset (only goo teams made after this update will still be active).
If you just want to see the raw balance updates feel free to skip to the bottom of this post. Below I'll go into some of the bigger changes and the justifications behind them.
A big balance that affects a lot of goos is the changed 'hit by' mechanic. Any goos or items that would trigger 'when hit' now trigger when hit by more than just an attack (Ex: Shoe Goo's reflect).
Bubble and Cha-Boom by far have the lowest win rates of any goos. To fix this they both are getting reworks to make them more interesting to use and win with! Bubble still will hit enemies for 1/2 of ATK however instead of popping its ATK and HP will just be halved each time it attacks! That way you can get multiple attacks in with them. As well Cha-Boom won some more matches than Bubble it still was hard to win with. Cha-Boom now doesn't damage any other Fire goos and got a 33% increase in starting health to tank more hits before exploding.
Speaking of Fire goos, Fire goos are viable but still less effective than plants and water goos that scaled late game. As such Burning Goo and Flrix now reflect more damage onto their attacker. (25%-> 33% And 50% -> 75%) This paired with the damage changes and the Cha-Boom rework should make for some interesting team compositions!
Only one goo got a sizable nerf this update (see note #1) That is the Freddo the dragon. Freddo was very hard to beat once he started to knock out goos and get bigger. Freddo now gets +10 HP & ATK when knocking out an enemy instead of +15 HP/ATK/Defense. This should make his scaling less crazy.
We have reworked a ton of the held items to make them all have certain roles in certain builds. The Crown and Top Hat were by far the most used items. Crown now only gives +1/+1 on a win instead of +2/+2 and for an item that you could attach on round 2 it was a must have item at a +2/+2. As well sword/fedora/sunhat all give an extra +1 to each stat they modify!
Final Thoughts
Thank you guys so much for all the love and playtime that you have given Goo Gladiators. It has been super fulfilling to see everyone enjoying it and hearing what everyone thinks about it, It has been a great time making this game. Do feel free to leave us a review on Steam (they help us a ton), come join the fun on our Discord and if you're feeling super generous support us on Patreon to help us keep awesome content coming to the game for a long time coming.
Full(ish) Patch notes
1.8.0
- Added Gang Leaderboard
- Added new goo skins, no face, Colorless
- Added new spooky goo DLC (Three new goos, a goo skin and some new items)
- Added showing of goos extra stats when in the arena view on hover
- Added display showing when something is going it mutate in x amount of turns
- Added private matches
- Added Goopendium
- Changed 'when hit' to now trigger when hit by anything
- Changed the placeholder text of 'cool team' on the replay menu to show the round #
- Improved server performance when applying an item
- Fixed bug where sleeping powder had a 2x drop rate
- Fixed Freddie no longer is double buffed when KOing a rock goo.
- Fixed string item sometime not triggering when attached
- Fixed wording for award saying level instead of rank.
- Fixed bug where hurt animation would show improperly when bubble popped
- Fixed pudbun not actually getting its attack when hurt
- Fixed bug where your run would be canceled if you updated your icon background or skin
1.8.1
- Fixed mutate counter being wrong on some of the goos
- Fixed private matches not exiting to the group play menu when complete.
Full Balance updates
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Ability Changes
- Tadpole: Ability now reduces ATK by -2 instead of -1.
- Burning Goo: Ability now reflects 33% of its ATK value on attacker instead of 25%
- Flrix: Ability now reflects 75% of its ATK value on attacker instead of 50%
- Cha-Boom: Its attacks will now not hurt Other fire goos
- Freddo: Ability now gives +10/+10 HP/ATK instead of +15/+15/+15 HP/ATK/DEF Stat Changes (This is their starting stats)
- Rock: Speed: 2 -> 3
- Bubble: ATK: 6-> 14
- Bubble: HP: 15 -> 16
- Moss: Speed: 3 -> 4
- Mushies: ATK: 2 -> 4
- Mushies: Speed: 1 -> 2
- Flowa: Speed: 5 -> 4
- Flowa: HP: 8 ->6
- Jumptio: HP: 10 -> 15
- Freddo: ATK: 20 -> 25
- Freddo: HP: 20 -> 25
- Freddo: DEF: 20 -> 0
- Cha-Boom: HP: 20 -> 30 Item changes
- Crown: +2/+2 HP/ATK -> +1/+1 HP/ATK (per win)
- Fedora: +1 DEF -> +2 DEF
- Sunhat: +2 HP -> +3 HP
- Sword: +2 ATK -> +3 ATK
- Fish: now also gives +1 HP on a loss
- Top Hat: No longer gives Defense