A balance update in the BETA branch to keep you busy while you wait for the first round of enemy improvements and additions. With this update, we have switched to the new enemy "engine", so there may be some growing pains to iron out.
Don't worry! We've already made huge progress toward the enemy updates you've been waiting for.
Minor Features and Improvements
- Speedrun Mode has been added to the Settings menu! While this is toggled, you'll always see your game time and wave. Additionally, the game will display your splits for each boss you defeat
- Since we're supporting speedrunning, the game now uses "real time" instead of game time. As a result, your time at game end is accurate regardless of your hardware
- Comets now shatter on enemies they can't one shot, creating a spray of rock and ice. This helps make comets less swingy on boss fights and more interesting during encounters
- Added a unique FX and SFX for the player death! The higher your level when you die, the more spectacular it is (up to level 50). The SFX you hear will be a little different, each time, too
- Added a new setting: Auto deploy Turrets
- Added a new setting: Auto deploy Mines
- Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism"
- Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism Freed", the remix to Parallellism, that plays in Wild Metamorphosis
- BGM Tracks: Zeroed, Recursor, and NoGrav now play in both Wild Metamorphosis and standard as they have no remix
- Auto deploy will no longer behave differently for Architect. If you do not want architect to auto deploy, you can leave these settings off
- Constructs will now attempt to avoid impending blasts, such as Celestial bombs
- "Centering" enemies on screen now works better with various monitor aspect ratios
- Grenades, Grenade submunitions, and Salvo missiles are no longer removed from the game if you level up while they are present
- The player won't take damage from enemies or celestial hazards while touching a singularity until 3 seconds after they come out
- Reroll drops in the Wild Metamorphosis challenge mode are consistent with the reroll penalty at game start, which is 50% fewer rerolls. Previously this rate was reduced, but not consistently
- Improved the accuracy of measuring various shield radii
Balance and Mechanical Changes
- Super Mod: Singular Strike has been reworked. New rules: Your weapon behaves as though your projectile count is 1. Your projectile count beyond 1 is fused into your single projectile, strengthening it. Up to 25 projectiles can be fused. +15% damage, size, and blast radius. Each projectile fused adds an additional 50% of its damage to your projectile. Each projectile fused further increases the size and blast radius of your projectile, with diminishing returns. +.1-second rate of fire delay
- Warp Shield has been reworked, and given updated visuals. The warp destination no longer automatically rotates around you, and is instead forward facing. It has gained a new power: If your shield protects you when it breaks, you will be intangible for .75s while teleporting. In this state, you may steer the position of the destination point around your shield radius
- Salvo has been reworked. Salvo now stockpiles 4 missiles per .5 second interval. Modifiers to projectile count affect the number of missiles stockpiled per interval while modifiers to rate of fire affect the interval duration. It still has diminishing returns as the stockpile becomes larger. Salvo is considered a 4-base-projectile weapon
- As a result of the above changes, Salvo begins weaker, but scales much more powerfully from many weapon mods. Also, Salvo always fires 1 missile and ignores burst fire. However, for the purposes of barrage, it still behaves as it previously did
- Salvo seeking begins to decay after being in existence for too long (this is only noticeable with really, really slow projectiles)
- Salvo-Loaded Mines now calculate their projectile count based on a stockpile of one second
- Vortex has been reworked, with the goal of making it easier to use at low levels, and less out of control when pushed to the maximum. Vortex charges faster at small sizes, and has a lower base cost of self-damage. However, to compensate, the self-damage costs scale more exponentially with the size of the vortex. You may need to release your Vortex sooner at very high sizes!
- Vortex scaling has been made generally more sensible and consistent under the hood. Singular Strike now applies its size bonus during the charge rather than on release
- Vortex has been given new visuals that are less blinding and occlusive. Also, the Vortex is held slightly farther away from the player so you are less likely to collide with your target
- 18 -> 12 base projectile count for Flak. Flak has gained a new power: Doubles added projectiles gained from upgrades. Slightly reduced Flak spread and projectile size
- Made Grenade's cluster count less prolific at high size modifiers. Shouldn't affect much at low values
- Blade used to deal "area" damage if it was in contact with a target. Blade now does this all the time, making it more reliable and generally more destructive, especially at larger sizes. Its area hitbox has been made more accurate
- Blades have a new hidden ability: They now take -50% less total damage from all sources (except self-damage)
- 1.75s -> 1.5s Blade assembly time
- Blades no longer trigger so much player self-damage from mods that scale with your rate of fire
- Overseer will now only add additional blades from base construct count and added constructs, not from projectile mods
- 180 -> 220 base damage for Pulse
- Pulse projectiles now work with all projectile mods!
- 50% -> 35% Pulse base damage for Pulse shards
- Thermal Lance base beam damage has been increased by 15%
- Cloak rate for Spectre is now 1% faster per your level
- +200% -> +250% cloak max stealth bonus
- Shockwave shield small pulses have a 22% longer delay between pulses. Shockwave shield now only releases its large shockwave on shield reset if the shield has broken Orbital Shield now gains less magnitude based on how much magnitude it already has, resulting in a soft cap on size and damage. To compensate, the base magnitude gain from damage has been increased ~21%. (Orbital was reaching potentially screen-sized sizes, shutting down enemies completely)
- Firefly thruster size now also scales with sources of "total" thrust, such as Amp and Ataraxia
- 25% -> 15% Firefly self-damage resistance
- 25% -> 15% Firefly crash damage resistance (Firefly was already the whole package with no drawbacks on top of being capable of massive area burn damage)
- Body power multipliers now affect Battery projectile size modifier
- 600% -> 400% for Leviathan max crash damage bonus
- Banishing any Wild Mod using the Research body gear now costs 2 rerolls, however Research now gains its defensive buff for spending rerolls by banishing, not for the amount of mods banished. (Research has become a staple of truly busted Wild Metamorphosis builds to the point of becoming practically mandatory in the highest scoring builds. Something had to be done)
- Overseer has been reworked. It now provides +1 to advanced constructs instead of doubling them. It still doubles basic and standard construct assembly limits. Overseer's assembly speed buff has been increased 1% to 2% to match its thrust malus. (Overseer's explosive power when combined with Engineer was negatively impacting game balance. Without making this change, advanced constructs would need to be made weaker, which negatively impacts all other ship bodies). As a result of this change, some constructs have been adjusted to help compensate for the loss of power to Engineer via Overseer:
- 30 -> 25 second assembly time for Allies
- 35 -> 30 second assembly time for Turrets
- 125 -> 150 hull for Turrets
- 25 -> 30 damage for Drones
- .04% -> .05% assembly speed per your level for Elegant Construction
- -30% -> -40% drone rate of fire for Rocket Drones
- +25% -> +60% damage for Rocket Drones
- +30% -> +40% drone hull for Reinforced Drones
- Weapon movement and turn rate modifiers now apply to Interceptor Ally
- Interceptor Allies will not fire a number of Blade Drones exceeding your Blade assembly limit
- Barrage will now only scale additional projectiles for Blades from projectile modifiers, not construct assembly limit modifiers
- Splinter Shot projectile count has been made less prolific at very high size values
- Super Mod: Tempest Break now requires Deadly Wake and Flash Shielding instead of Streamline and Flash Shielding. (Shieldbreaker builds couldn't afford to be this fragile)
- +8 -> +10 base damage for Super Mod: Barrage, which now grants base damage instead of flat damage
- 25% -> 30% maximum hull or shields converted for Conversion
- Siege Weaponry now works with Charged Shot, Thermal Lance, and Vortex. This applies self-damage continuously while charging, and the rate of fire multiplier from Siege-Weaponry applies to the charge rate
- Siege Weaponry + Charged Shot now boosts Salvo stockpile rate while charging
- Siege Weaponry + Interceptor Ally now applies construct fire rate multiplier
- Weapon total thrust while firing malus are now multiplicative with each other. Base maluses of this type have been adjusted: Thermal Lance, Torrent, and Vortex -35% -> -30%
- -90% -> -80% total thrust while firing for Siege Weaponry. Siege Weaponry's ramping self damage has been made less severe
- Charged Shot minimum bonus value is now +0%, instead of +15%
- -80% -> -90% for Calibrate max spread reduction
- Splinter shot velocity now has a floor. This helps things like Blade bursts stay relevant when the projectile is at the apex of boomeranging
- Rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike spread reduction is now a "total" modifier to your spread
- -15% -> -10% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike total spread modifier
- -5% -> -7% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike cooldown and recovery
- +10% -> +7% weapon damage and projectile size for Heavy Caliber
- -10% -> -7% weapon velocity for Heavy Caliber
- Wild Mod: Maelstrom scaling has been adjusted similarly to how Orbital Shield was
- Wild Mod: Scorching Wake fireballs now offset more the more you have, causing them to be less clumped-up
- Wild Mod: Solar Heart has been made more impactful. It's bonuses have been doubled and it's malus has been more than doubled
- +50% -> +40% global damage for Hidden Power (This massive bonus was from an older time, where there were fewer ways to deal "secondary damage")
- Firing Array has been reworked. New Rules: +15% total projectile damage and blast radius for your central projectile. Other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile damage and blast radius, incrementally decreasing to 0% for your outermost projectiles. +30% total projectile size for your central projectile. Your other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile size, incrementally decreasing to -30% for your outermost projectiles
- Gemini Protocol now works for shielded constructs
- Rare Wild Mod: Obsession has been reworked. It now only applies the malus for recursive mods added by Obsession, not for your total Wild Mods owned. As a result, the malus has been increased from 1 % to 3% of your total hull and shields
- Wild Mod: Spontaneous Generation no longer self-destructs Architect's constructs.
- +3% -> +2% maximum hull and shields for Wild Mod: Rampage
- Hull threshold triggers have been reworked. This affects Retribution and Outrage Module. They now trigger based on the original damage dealt, and not the damage taken. Since this is more damage, the trigger threshold has been increased from 10% to 15% of your maximum hull (This change was primarily made so that "Minebreaker" builds could work again, now that Retribution has limitations)
- Armor stack quantity gained by taking damage has been reduced by 37.5%. To compensate, Rebuke damage has been increased 60%. (Adaptive Armor was insane value for one point, and pretty much a mandate for any very high scoring build. It still provides a lot of defense when needed, but it's now more in line with other defensive mods)
- Self damage "hits" no longer always give at least one armor stack, but Self-damage now generates armor stacks at a more favorable rate. 50% -> 75% efficiency
- 35 -> 40 base hull from Rapid Reconstruction
- +80% -> +100% regeneration from Rapid Reconstruction
- 25 -> 100 damage for Blink (This change was primarily made so that the Super Mod: Displacement deals more relevant damage
- Super Mod: Burnout Reactors + Gemini Protocol now behaves as you'd expect
- Each type of damage resistance is now additive with other sources of the same type instead of either additive or multiplicative. Fixed several inconsistencies with how damage resistance is calculated
- Stacking burn damage from enemy orbs, especially from Seraph, takes longer to ramp up to its full damage, starting from 0. This effect has been applied to enemy deadly wakes, as well. My hope is that these are less of a hard counter to Leviathan as a result, as well as making Seraph and Spitfire less of an "insta-kill" at very high waves
- Regeneration and shield cooldown no longer occurs if the player is invulnerable (except during Emergency Systems)
- Made knockback from the player less extreme at high values
Localization Changes
- For strings that were changed this update, and new strings moving forward, tool-tip numbers now reflect in-game variables. This means that changes which only affect numbers will not require re-translation
- Improved dozens of upgrade descriptions
Fixes and Under The Hood
- Removed the requirement that you first orb come from an enemy if you're skipping waves using the Danger Zone challenge mod
- Previously, "flat" damage and "base" damage behaved inconsistently, scaling from some things they should not, in order of operations different than what you'd expect. This has been corrected. All instances of flat damage are now base damage, and base damage is simply added to the weapon base damage before modifiers. This affects: Wild Mod: Solar Heart, Super Mod: Antimatter Rounds, and Super Mod: Barrage
- Fixed some hitboxes that were slowly and invisibly rotating, causing some unintended behavior
- Fixed Corrosion's wildly inaccurate tool tip damage
- Rewrote Bastion code to try to be less of an error-prone special snowflake
- Windowed Mode: For window sizes that fit vertically but not horizontally, we now clamp the width to the maximum and allow it to be used
- Leviathan tries harder to keep its segments together
- Leviathan, at extreme sizes, now doesn't show its seams while wrapping
- Crates outside the edge of the screen are allowed to generate loot normally when destroyed
- Charged Mines now correctly reduces your mine assembly limit, as it claims it does
- Fixed Constructs using Siege Weaponry automatically having Saturation Fire
- Fixed reflected projectiles not getting handled properly in a few places
- Fixed recoil resistance not affecting player recoil from Heavy Caliber
- Fixed Calibrate applying in a few cases it shouldn't have
- Fixed some inconsistencies with Blade assembly limit being misreported
- Fixed Turret Specialist not reducing Turret self-damage
- Fixed the Construct Swarm rate of fire boost only applying to a single advanced Swarm Construct
- Fixed Venom Strike not scaling with body power multipliers
- Warp Strike now wraps wider, allowing the weapon to hit off-screen enemies more reliably
- Railgun and crash damage now can't reach quite such extreme values of screen shake and has a cap
- Fixed a silly bug where one half of Eclipse chassis had their rarity bonuses applied twice, and the other had none
- Fixed the possibility of Retribution occurring if you can't assemble and deploy constructs
- Fixed some strange scaling with some blast radii
- Fixed several cases where weird things could apply Essense Sap
- Fixed Hives being trapped off-screen
- Dart projectiles now disable wrapping and destroy-outside behavior while lodged in something
- Made the knockback modifier from Polar Inversion work on a case by case basis so things like enemy recoil and comets aren't affected
- Things that worked in a circular range have been made more accurate, using real pixel values
- Included some missing Simplified Chinese characters
- Wild Mod: Winnow can no longer banish THE VOID and does not grant rerolls or size reduction for them
See the build history at: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes/