Hey guys! Today we launched one of our biggest patches to date. This patch is kind of a “pre-run” for when we get ready to leave Early Access and as such, there’s a lot of new material in it. Rejoice, the content is flowing again! This changelog is a ‘mostly’ complete edition of everything you can find in it. It’s not perfect by a long shot, but here’s the lowdown on what all you can expect to find:
Build #: 3.545
New Features
- A brand new Ladder system has been added! Every month a new season starts — play PvP to see how you compare to the rest of the players! Challenges do not affect the ladder system, either, so if you want to practice against other players, challenge them to a match.
- Improved and revamped menu screens.
- Improved profile page, with detailed match history, ladder placement and statistics, among other changes.
- Improved collection page, which includes a search function, ability to sort by type and cost, and customized deck graph; you can see the balance of mechanical/command/organic cards in your deck more easily now.
- Improved store, with more pack options and new effects upon opening packs.
- Login Bonus — You will now get Coins when you log in; log in on consecutive days to get increasing amounts of Coins!
PvP Improvements
- New matchmaking formulas to streamline who gets matched against whom.
- No-one of your skill level online? You'll get the option to instead play against a bot, who will use a deck from someone from around your skill level, and you'll Coins and XP as if it were a real PvP battle.
- Players who disconnect during the discard phase will only be given a small window to reconnect, otherwise, they will be surrendered.
Changes
- Simplified when you can discard a quest: You can now discard a quest once per day, rather than once per day if you had not yet gotten a new quest assigned on that same day.
- Fixed Republic Sherman ‘Hades’ not hitting next enemy in Row.
- Offline mode improvements have been made. While it’s still not a perfect system, a lot of the connectivity issues experienced by players should be reduced significantly.
- Chat improvements have been made, which allow players to more easily identify developers; devs always have a unique color, in addition to the ‘DEV’ tag and star by their name.
- Icons for movement / attacking on cards have been improved significantly.
- Tweak XP gain formulas, to be more fair and streamlined.
New Units
Most of the new cards focus on buffing units, or removing buffs and debuffs, offering new ways to deal with super-powered enemy units. All of the non-StormSiege cards are Command cards, and common unless otherwise stated.
Republic
- Cobra Rocket (Silver) - Removes health and attack buffs from a unit, then deals one damage.
- Advance Warning - Removes attack buffs from a unit.
Alliance
- Sonic Destabilization (Bronze) - Clear all attack buffs from units in a 2x2 area.
- Rearmament - Clears attack debuffs from a unit, then adds one Attack.
Neutral
- Training Camp - +1/+1 to an allied Organic.
- Motor Pool - +1/+1 to an allied Mechanical.
- Full Reorganization - Resets an ally to their base stats (removing both buffs and debuffs).
- Seeds of Doubt - Resets an enemy to their base stats (removing both buffs and debuffs).
- Piercing Rounds - Removes any health bonuses from a unit (for when you just can’t kill that Medic quick enough).
- Frenzy (Bronze) - Target unit gets +5 Attack for one turn, then gets -10 Attack next turn.
The StormSiege cards offer a range of units and Command cards, some with quite novel abilities.
StormSiege
- Soldier of Fortune (Bronze) - Evasion and Diagonal Movement make a good combination.
- Air-Dropped Turret (Bronze) - This static turret isn’t too tough, but it can be placed directly into the third column, and with Forward+Diagonal targeting and Counterattack (+1) it’s a solid defender.
- Shocktrooper (Silver) - He not only Disables his targets, but they also suffer -1 Attack.
- Mobile Command Vehicle (Silver) - A capable combat unit, it also heals adjacent allies on move!
- Lightning Tower (Gold) - Deals 1 damage to all units in a cross, but it also gives Mechanicals +1 Attack and moves them forward a tile.
- Man Eating Plant (Bronze) - Can target any unit around it, deploys into the third column, and has 4 HP for only 3 MP. The catch is, that if it moves at all, it dies instantly.
- Jungle Ambush (Bronze) - Disables a target cheaply, but only in the center row.
- Mad Scientist (Silver) - Gives an Organic ally +2/+2 cheaply, but it also costs you 4 HP from your Command Center.
- Amphibious Landing (Silver) - Move forward all allied units one tile.
- All or Nothing! (Gold) - Requires careful use, but a potential game changer - resets all allied units for only 5 MP, but deals 10 damage to your Command Center.
Balance
- Republic Bell Helicopter -1 Attack on targets now only lasts one turn. Providing permanent Attack reductions was just too powerful for such a cheap common card. Permanent Attack debuffs have been added to other Command Cards to compensate, and as part of general Command Card rebalancing (see below).
- Alliance Maginot Turret HP reduced to 3 from 5. Can be disintegrated for full cost. The strength of this unit comes from the fresh Shield every turn, but with 5 HP it can be tough to kill even if you overwhelm the Shield. With 3 HP it still won’t be easy to kill, but if you set up a good combo of units and/or Command Cards it should be very manageable.
- Alliance Desert Riders Cost reduced to 3 from 6. As a faction specific common card, causing only a debuff, it really wasn’t very worthwhile compared to things like the Neutral Light Artillery, dealing up to 4 damage for the same price, or the Stuka Strafing Run dealing up to 3 damage for only 4 MP.
- Many more! See forum thread for more details.
Other things that were announced (such as card backs, Steam achievements, etc) will be coming soon, but are still being worked on right now. We figured we’ve left you guys wanting content for over a month, it’s time for the doozy we promised you.
Please, as always, make sure you F3 and report anything you run into and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post them on the forums and we’ll answer to the best of our abilities. Thanks!
Also for the winners of the Starter Pack tournament, please email me at [email protected] with what card you’d like. Your prizes may not come from the new card sets released with this patch (sorry!). Thanks again to Sci for running this event; it was awesome. We’ll be posting videos in a coming update to showcase all of our participants. If you’re having trouble uploading your videos, send an email to the above address, and we’ll see what we can do to help!