Reposted from PWG blog.
It’s been a while since we reported patch notes because we had our heads down crunching for GDC. With that out of the way, we have our sights on PAX East. Here’s a summary of all the new features we cranked out for GDC.
This latest patch is now live to all Alpha testers. If you want to participate in the Tooth and Tail Alpha, please jump into our chatroom and talk directly with us HERE.
Gameplay
All damage now operates on a damage per second system, instead of damage per 5 seconds
New players often had difficulty reading the original damage numbers. Before, Squirrels were listed as 10 ATK, which meant that Squirrels did 10 damage over 5 seconds. People interpreted this as Squirrels doing 10 damage per bullet and were confused why enemy Squirrels did not die instantly.
We changed the number to now reflect how much damage that unit does per 1 second. We didn’t convert to a damage per bullet system because many units have different fire rates, so we believe this is the easiest way to convey how much damage a unit generally does.
Fox now instantly casts shots, instead of waiting 2.5 seconds
Fox is now 30 DEF, down from 50
Fox sniper shot is now previewable by the enemy for .25 seconds
Fox
Tier 3 Units and Structures now have a 30 second build time and production time, down of 40 seconds
Tier 3 has fallen heavily out of favor in the current meta. We believe this is due to a change we made to map generation in the last patch. In an effort to make matches shorter and more dense with action, we shrank overall map size by 10%-15% on average. As a result, it became more difficult to get away with Tier 3 production. With this new change, Tier 3 will be a more viable option.
Snakes now fire once per 1 second instead of once per 2.5 seconds
Snakes now deal 1 damage per second on their poison, but poison lasts forever. Poison does not apply to commanders.
Lizards now have 3 ATK, down from 4
Skunk gas now does 2 damage per second, up from 1 per second
Wolf buff now has a 10 second cooldown, down from 15
Wolf won’t target or trigger its buff on enemy Commanders anymore
Barbed wire no longer blocks movement, slows units to 25% of their movement speed, and damages all units adjacent to it. Only melee can damage it.
Barbed wire is now 20 DEF, down from 30
Anything can now target Barbed wire while it’s building
Toads can no longer hit Barbed wire
We removed the ability to use Toads against Barbed wire because it is generally a really bad trade. If players ended up wasting Toads to kill Barbed wire, they were actually worsening their strategic position.
Mice spawned from Owls no longer have Swift
Badger ATK increased to 30, up from 28
Landmine damage is now 5, down from 10
Pigs now have 10 health, down from 15
Pig health was lowered to increase the risk of going full economy, since rushing was falling out of favor in the meta. It is no longer 100% safe to go all farms in the beginning of every match.
Artillery Cannon is 12/100 up fro 6/60 and is now a Tier 3 structure
We wanted to explore the idea that we have structures in each of the Tiers. The Artillery Cannon is now the most powerful defensive structure in the game
Artillery volleys now take 2 seconds to hit their target instead of 1.5
This change was made to make Ferrets primarily an anti-structure unit, rather than a combat unit as we had seen during a recent meta.
You can now sell HQs, Pigs, and structures at any time for up to a full refund value.
If the structure takes any damage, you will only be refunded a percentage of food based on the percentage of HP remaining. For example, if a structure has only 90% of it’s health remaining, you will only be refunded 90% of it’s food.
Toads are now 5/15, instead of 10/10
Pigeons now heal 1 per second, down from 2 per second
After burrowing, you may now choose which target windmill you will spawn from
Audio
Temporary voice over added for each commander
Performance
Fixed a bug that was causing Skunk gas to do 5x its intended damage
Pathfinding optimization improves performance
PAX East is only 2 weeks away, so we will be unable to make new patch notes until afterwards. We are hard at work at some amazing new features we can’t wait to tell you about, so please stay tuned for the coming weeks!
-AndyN.