Hey everyone,
we skipped last week, so this week’s patch is extra big and extra juicy, with lots of gameplay improvements! The focus was to make games more dynamic and action-packed, and stop certain tactics that could make the game boring, both for the winning and the losing player. We also did some unit and spell re-balancing, with the same goals in mind, which should make games a lot more fun and enjoyable. We also added two new skins plus two more that will be available as rewards soon!
Part of the goal this week was to make fighting between towers less static. By reducing the tower reload speeds, players can now continue an attack on a tower over multiple waves instead of always being faced with a fully reloaded tower each time they approach. Another goal was to shorten drawn out games, so we’ve reduced the Nexus ammo across the board. Your Nexus can still hold off one pretty big push, but it won’t draw out the game forever.
The effects of Summoning Sickness have been greatly reduced. The duration is shorter and units no longer take double damage while being summoned. This allows a lot of interesting tactics, like summoning units directly on the battlefield, that weren’t really possible before. Summoned units are still vulnerable though, as they won’t be able to defend themselves during summoning.
Another goal for this patch was to stop certain semi-exploit strategies that relied on getting double spawns and/or saving up lots of Mana while simply not doing anything. To get this done, we’ve both reduced the Mana caps and increased the income rates. After these changes we saw much more action-packed games, while still not changing the general game feel too much. To address the double spawn strats, we’ve changed the mechanics of the spawners to now only immediately spawn a unit if the spawning field is active, and then not spawn another until the next spawning cycle.
Especially at lower levels, there could often be situations of big blobs of high damage/low health units forming, that were impossible to counter, which could be extremely frustrating. To balance this, we’ve given one low-tier spell of each Legion a moderate damage effect, which can be used to break up these “DPS blobs” and should allow players to get back into the game in these situations.
On top of that, we also did a bunch of unit balance changes, which are mainly based on community feedback. So thanks to all of you who contributed feedback and ideas! In that vein, a few of you might also have noticed a certain flying unit getting a new ability... Hats off to all you “Wisp Defenders” out there, you made it happen! :)
Whew, that was a lot of text! So without further ado, here’s the full changelist:
Balancing
Base Buildings
- Reduced “Nexus” Ammo to 31 across all tiers
- “Nexus” is now spell immune
- “Lane Tower” reload speed reduced by 50%
- “Lane Tower” and “Nexus”: Main target of projectile now only gets single target damage, not splash damage as well
White
- Increased “Heavy Gunner” Lightgrenades Splash-radius from 2.5 to 3.0
- Reduced “Archer” damage from 21 to 20
- Increased “Archer” health from 23 to 25
- Increased “Monk” health from 205 to 225
- “Light Pulse” now also deals 15 damage
- Increased “Light Pulse” cost from 80 to 130 Mana
Black
- Reduced “Shatter Ice” damage from 1000 to 200
- Increased “Soul Cauldron” health from 155 to 190
- Increased “Vecra” health from 345 to 375
- “Frost Shock” now freezes units as well as buildings and fires 12 shards at nearby targets
- Increased “Frost Shock” cost from 80 to 130 Mana
Green
- Increased “Rootling” health from 190 to 200
- Increased “Rooted” effect damage from 1 to 2 each second
- Increased “Entangling Roots” cost from 80 to 130 Mana
- Reduced “Woodwalker” health from 170 to 115
- Reduced “Rootdood” Mana cost for "Dood Root" from 2 to 1
- Increased “Rootdood” range of "Dood Root" from 8 to 11
- “Wisp” has a new ability: Depleting Bounce (Attacks bounce and hit up to 6 random targets; each hit reduces the damage of the next bounce by the damage dealt)
Blue
- Reduced “Gatling Turret” health from 250 to 210
Miscellaneous
- Reduced Summoning Sickness from 2.5 to 1 second. Units also don’t receive double damage anymore while being summoned
- Reduced Mana Caps (Stage 1: 400 / Stage 2: 500 / Stage 3: 600)
- Mana gain increased to +2 instead of +1 with every income upgrade
- Stage times Stone are now: Stage 2 starts at 3 min, Showdown starts at 6 min
- Stage times Bronze/Silver are now: Stage 2 starts at 3 min, Stage 3 at 6 min, Showdown at 9 min
- Stage times Gold+ are now: Stage 2 starts at 4 min, Stage 3 at 8 min, Showdown at 12 min
- Spawn Tiles now glow when they are ready for instant spawning. If a Spawner is placed on a glowing tile, it spawns instantly. If the tile is not glowing, the unit doesn’t spawn until the next spawning cycle
Skins
- Added Cultist (Monk Skin)
- Added Predictor (Oracle Skin)
- Added WIP Priest (Limited Reward)
- Added Rainbow Skeleton Archers (Quest Reward)
While this round of balancing was very important for the current state of the game and also for future features (we always have 2v2 in mind), we can understand that many of you would like to know more about our near-term plans. We're planning on releasing more information on the game's roadmap soon, so the community knows how things are shaping up on our way to full release. Keep your eyes peeled on our social media and Discord to hear more about that soon!
You can keep up to date by following us on Twitter and Facebook:
https://twitter.com/Rise_Of_Legions
https://www.facebook.com/RiseOfLegions
As always, we’re curious to hear what you think! Join us on the Discord to share your opinion, chat or just hangout!
http://riseoflegions.com/discord