This update is just about working through feedback, and making more adjustments to ease players in and smooth out higher (and future) difficulties. I'm pretty comfortable with where things are for the base difficulty now. There will be a few more updates between now and the new faction update that will add some new fun stuff to higher difficulties.
Finally, If you've reported a bug or made a request and I haven't addressed it yet, it's on the list, and I haven't forgotten about it.
Patch 0.57 Notes
Feature
- Wave Breaks: The wave timer now stops and a small countdown begins at the top of the screen before a Legion attacks. This starts at 3 seconds of extra buffer time (there was already a small buffer built in depending on how quickly you cleared enemies), and increases to 6 seconds by the late game. Note: For many players this won't be a necessary feature at difficulty 1, but this will help smooth out the intro curve for new players, and for all players at higher levels of difficulty.
Polish
- Certain breakthroughs will now add letter icons to the affected weapons so you know which ones have which effects in the shop, but only when it matters. Note: I intend to add some text to the tooltip box, eventually. - P for Prototype - O for Optimized - C for Capacity
- Level 2 weapons are now marked when placed in battle, so they can be told apart from level 1's
- Combat icons now properly show if the weapon is upgraded as well
- It's now explained in the difficulty 1 tooltip that higher difficulties increase your experience gained
- The plasmic tooltip now states the duration (3 seconds).
- Fixed a typo in the save and quit prompt
- Minor optimization to various bits of code (likely neglible on performance)
Balance
Notes: Breakthroughs have gotten a tune up, moving more interesting options into the starter pool, and forward in the unlocks. These changes may result in you seeing certain breakthroughs unlock again, despite having unlocked them already due to the way unlocks work.
- Breakthrough: "Optimized" is a new breakthrough in the starter pool. It allows you to reduce the energy cost of the upgraded weapon by 12%
- Breakthrough: Trickle Down has been removed from the pool.
- Breakthrough: "Integrity" is now called "Value Share" and adds 2/3/4 gold to 1 weapon's value on your bench.
- Breakthrough: "Capacity" (allows you to place an extra copy of the upgraded weapon) is now in the starting pool, and does not need to be unlocked.
- Breakthrough: "Efficiency" (bonus energy gain) is now the first Breakthrough unlocked allowing it to be added to the pool many levels earlier.
- Breakthrough: "Salvage" (destroy your upgraded weapon for double its sell value) is now the 2nd breakthrough you'll unlock.
- Tech Tiers: Now grant +15% bonus energy gain (previously was 12% but the tooltip said 5%).
- Enemy attack timers no longer instantly reset if you shift lanes. There is a buffer that allows them to retarget a new weapon if one moves in front of them while they're still charging an attack.
- Enemies: Valknari Turtles disable weapons more frequently.
- Enemies: Valknari elites have +50 health, and attack 20% faster
- Synergy: The "Assault" synergy now grants a 12/20/36% chance to gain +1 bonus ammo on reload. Down from 20/35/50%.
- Weapons: Pellet Pulser now has a 1.5 second cooldown at level 1, and a 1.35 second cooldown at level 2.
- Weapon: Bullet Buddy now has no limit on drones placed on allies at one time, but the cooldown has been increased. Gains more health at level 2.
- Weapons: Voltic chain damage range has been reduced slightly, and the chance to apply voltic effects has been reduced to 20% from 25%.
Bugs
- The reroll cost increase will now instantly be reflected in the shop without needing to reselect the reroll option when playing on difficulty 3+
- Fire Holes no longer says it deals bomb damage, nor does it list the gravic synergy
- Fixed an issue with Voltic damage triggering itself recursively
- Fixed an issue that could cause the star rating to disappear
- Satellite Strike should now properly hit all enemy types