Next week, on Friday, December 15th, we'll be releasing Version 0.3! This version includes:
- Tower Techs redone into Global Upgrades
- Meta Tech Tree for Survival getting a Fourth Tree
- New Techs
- New Quickplay & Co-op Maps
- Ability to select Targeting Priorities
- Balance Adjustments
- Performance Improvements
And of course, QoL improvements, bug fixes, and the usual. Read on for the full preview!
Global Upgrades
Throughout your playthroughs, you may have encountered Tower Techs. These would apply to all towers of that type and add some unique benefit for that tower type. The problem is:
- These showed up in End-of-Wave Rewards only, so you didn't get to choose the timing
- And it would be randomized, so even when you did get it, you couldn't choose which one
- Numerous builds relied on Tower Techs to be usable
So, we've decided to take them out of the End-of-Wave Rewards and add a new button! Behold:
We've made Gravity Trap useful again! In theory...
Buying a Global Upgrade costs 75 Power in Survival, and everywhere else, it costs 50 Power. These values are not finalized, though with only a week to go, probably also won't change.
Survival
To help differentiate each run, we've added more Techs to the game! These include (but are not limited to):
- Upgrades to Overloads
- Sacrificing a Blocker on another Blocker to trigger an explosion
- Additional function on Recycle, enabling it to be used on an Obstacle to remove it
- Manufacturer specific techs
- And many more!
Additionally, we've added a Fourth Tree to the Meta Tech Tree. With these, we've also balanced a few of the existing Meta Techs, including everyone's favorite, the ability to not lose more than 50 lives a wave. That one has been overhauled.
Now introducing a way to remove Techs from the pool.
New Maps
To make use of the new Techs, we have 3 New Quickplay Maps & 3 New Co-op Maps, just like last time!
New maps and new backdrop. Have fun figuring this one out!
Targeting Priorities
It's been requested a few times, and now, the ability to change Targeting Priorities is here! The way this is works is that every Defense in the game has a Default Priority. This includes all their smart targeting functions. You also have options for:
- Front
- Back
- Near
- Far
- Strong
- Weak
Do note, selecting one of those will override smart targeting. If you want the original targeting back, just change it back to the Default option.
Balance Adjustments
We already did our lengthy chat on Balance last week with our Balance & Sandbox Designer, Johan, so we'll just mention outliers here:
- Blast Cannon is getting buffed
- Target Marker is getting reworked into a Mine
- Missile Launcher, Proximity Mine, EMP Mine, and Network are all getting nerfed
- Any upgrades that gave uncapped resources are getting capped
- Numerous other smaller buffs across the board
See that red explosion? Target Marker caused that.
Performance Improvements
For those of you that managed to "beat" Survival before, you may have noticed the game becoming slightly unplayable at a certain point. 1 FPS? Time to go on a walk each wave.
We've managed to isolate certain things and performance on the whole should be much better! Not perfect; late-game Survival in Wave 80+ is still likely to drop to 10 FPS at its worst. But overall, it is far more playable. And FPS between waves shouldn't tank anymore either. We're looking to improve it even more in the future.
This can actually run at decent FPS now.
And that's it for the Version 0.3 Preview! We might be sneaking some other things into the patch next week, like Chaos Mode, which randomizes your Loadout every single wave. Who knows what else will make it in there!
Look forward to the release on Friday, December 15th!