I've played a bit with the new patch, but haven't restarted from scratch, so I haven't used fire towers.

Overall, I don't think the patch improved game play. If better balance between tower types was needed, improving the poor performers would be a better strategy, and then add another boss level or infinite play. Making it harder to make progress makes the game less fun, and I thought the early game was a boring slog (every time I reset XP) anyway. It doesn't make me happy that there's now more slogging.

This would be tolerable, I think, if we had better control of our cards, but as it is, the cards you need are very often not available when you need them the most.

In general, I think the devs should focus on the card mechanics- ways to have a more focused use of upgrades. This is the weakest area of the game- if you try to make some kind of defense-in-depth, combined arms solution, you're much more likely to draw cards for the tower you don't need for the terrain you've got. The more cards you've unlocked, the less likely you are to get the upgrades you need for the towers you have. To experiment with different mixes of towers requires you to make this situation worse, or to reset XP and slog your way through the early game over and over again.

As much fun as this game could be, there's just too much grinding for my taste.

The game was MASSIVELY too easy before. You could literally place one tesla tower and never place anything else, just put all your money into upgrading that tesla tower, and win 100% of the time. They needed to be nerfed.

I'm just stupid, I guess. There are some areas where I feel like it works about right, but a bunch of other things that just grind. It's boring.

Originally posted by KellyR:

The game was MASSIVELY too easy before. You could literally place one tesla tower and never place anything else, just put all your money into upgrading that tesla tower, and win 100% of the time. They needed to be nerfed.

I agree, the tesla tower needed to be nerfed (though honestly on triple path it doesn't work well) - however, they halved it then halved it again, turning it from one of the most useful towers (and overpowered) to one of the least useful.

Now its only use is a 2 frost towers and a tesla to destroy missiles

Originally posted by Bane Williams:

Originally posted by KellyR:

The game was MASSIVELY too easy before. You could literally place one tesla tower and never place anything else, just put all your money into upgrading that tesla tower, and win 100% of the time. They needed to be nerfed.

I agree, the tesla tower needed to be nerfed (though honestly on triple path it doesn't work well) - however, they halved it then halved it again, turning it from one of the most useful towers (and overpowered) to one of the least useful.

Now its only use is a 2 frost towers and a tesla to destroy missiles

Err... Technically the only effective change is that they made it cost more to upgrade, and the RoF was lowered. The base damage and starting multipliers were increased proportionally to the RoF decrease, and its DPS when first placed is actually higher now, I think. But it costs more to pump it to level 100 and fast stuff can slip past because it doesn't fire as rapidly.

Mana cost increase was also proportional to the RoF decrease, so actual mana cost per second and mana cost per point of damage is the same as it used to be.

It got nerfed, but not that hard. Certainly not "halved and halved again"

Originally posted by AntiGrav1ty:

Half the rate of fire but double the damage only equals out to the same DPS at the very first level. Every subsequent level up makes the Tesla tower so much weaker compared to how it was before.

Tesla:
Base Damage increased from 5 to 10.
Health damage increased from 5 to 6.
Armor damage increased from 1 to 3.
Shield damage decreased from 10 to 9.
RPM decreased from 60 to 30.
Mana consumption increased from 25% base damage to 50% base damage.
Upgrades cost increased from x1 to x2.


Looking at health damage:

Before on level 1: 5x5 = 25 damage per second
Now on level 1: 10x6 = 60 damage every two seconds = 30 damage per second

Before on level 11: (5+10)x5 = 75 DPS
Now on level 11: (10+10)x6 = 120 damage every two seconds = 60 DPS

=> Considering that the upgrade cost multiplier got doubled, we get lower dps for a much much higher price.

Shield damage is even worse right from the start and the increased Armor damage multiplier also equals out to being worse from level 10 upwards (and again for an exponentially higher price)

Tesla was too strong before but this was an absolute hammer of a nerf and it made the tower borderline useless compared to other towers if you are looking for efficiency.

Well I mean, it wasn't like it was only a little too strong. It was egregiously overpowered and easily the strongest tower in the game. Like I said, single tower wins were a reliable thing with it.

Originally posted by KellyR:

Originally posted by Bane Williams:

I agree, the tesla tower needed to be nerfed (though honestly on triple path it doesn't work well) - however, they halved it then halved it again, turning it from one of the most useful towers (and overpowered) to one of the least useful.

Now its only use is a 2 frost towers and a tesla to destroy missiles

Err... Technically the only effective change is that they made it cost more to upgrade, and the RoF was lowered. The base damage and starting multipliers were increased proportionally to the RoF decrease, and its DPS when first placed is actually higher now, I think. But it costs more to pump it to level 100 and fast stuff can slip past because it doesn't fire as rapidly.

Mana cost increase was also proportional to the RoF decrease, so actual mana cost per second and mana cost per point of damage is the same as it used to be.

It got nerfed, but not that hard. Certainly not "halved and halved again"

Half the rate of fire but double the damage only equals out to the same DPS at the very first level. Every subsequent level up makes the Tesla tower so much weaker compared to how it was before.

Tesla:
Base Damage increased from 5 to 10.
Health damage increased from 5 to 6.
Armor damage increased from 1 to 3.
Shield damage decreased from 10 to 9.
RPM decreased from 60 to 30.
Mana consumption increased from 25% base damage to 50% base damage.
Upgrades cost increased from x1 to x2.


Looking at health damage:

Before on level 1: 5x5 = 25 damage per second
Now on level 1: 10x6 = 60 damage every two seconds = 30 damage per second

Before on level 11: (5+10)x5 = 75 DPS
Now on level 11: (10+10)x6 = 120 damage every two seconds = 60 DPS

=> Considering that the upgrade cost multiplier got doubled, we get lower dps for a much much higher price.

Shield damage is even worse right from the start and the increased Armor damage multiplier also equals out to being worse from level 10 upwards (and again for an exponentially higher price)

Tesla was too strong before but this was an absolute hammer of a nerf and it made the tower borderline useless compared to other towers in terms of efficiency.


Edit: The math looks a bit different depending on which damage type you level up with or whether you specialize while upgrading but i'm too lazy to map out all the scenarios. The overall point remains. The Tesla was nerfed hard and it's hardly worth it compared to other towers post patch.

Far and away my biggest gripe so far is that the card deck RNG is really bad, especially on limited tower type runs. Even with optimized unlocks to minimize dilution you for example unlock DOT upgrades with no ability to use them on your tower types or you get dot cards that you also can't use. There really should be some weighting to card drops that weighs getting a useful card more every time it's not drawn... for example if you've got bleed dmg cards but no tower types that apply bleed, you're more likely to receive a bleed card for one of your tower types for every time you don't get one. If any of that makes sense

Originally posted by Bourbon:

Far and away my biggest gripe so far is that the card deck RNG is really bad, especially on limited tower type runs. Even with optimized unlocks to minimize dilution you for example unlock DOT upgrades with no ability to use them on your tower types or you get dot cards that you also can't use. There really should be some weighting to card drops that weighs getting a useful card more every time it's not drawn... for example if you've got bleed dmg cards but no tower types that apply bleed, you're more likely to receive a bleed card for one of your tower types for every time you don't get one. If any of that makes sense

Weighting would go against the "roguelite" element of the game (That always means pure unweighted randomness that can and will hose you).

That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?

Originally posted by KellyR:

Originally posted by Bourbon:

Far and away my biggest gripe so far is that the card deck RNG is really bad, especially on limited tower type runs. Even with optimized unlocks to minimize dilution you for example unlock DOT upgrades with no ability to use them on your tower types or you get dot cards that you also can't use. There really should be some weighting to card drops that weighs getting a useful card more every time it's not drawn... for example if you've got bleed dmg cards but no tower types that apply bleed, you're more likely to receive a bleed card for one of your tower types for every time you don't get one. If any of that makes sense

Weighting would go against the "roguelite" element of the game (That always means pure unweighted randomness that can and will hose you).

That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?

You say 'roguelite' like it's some kind of critical goal in itself. 'Going against' things that make a game less fun shouldn't be constrained by some kind of arbitrary label.

As for 'That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?' it comes back to the horrific slog of early game when you reset XP. Besides, most towers do several kinds of DoT, and having the DoT type matching each tower's best or most developed damaged type is pretty important. And you do want to attack shields, armor and health efficiently. The current set up just makes it a lot harder to change strategies as the game progresses.

Also, to get essentials like 'draw every turn' it's necessary to unlock a lot of cards. One can unlock towers one never intends to use and take all the cheap cards, up to a point, but the DoT cards are actually useful and not too expensive.

Originally posted by KellyR:

Originally posted by Bourbon:

Far and away my biggest gripe so far is that the card deck RNG is really bad, especially on limited tower type runs. Even with optimized unlocks to minimize dilution you for example unlock DOT upgrades with no ability to use them on your tower types or you get dot cards that you also can't use. There really should be some weighting to card drops that weighs getting a useful card more every time it's not drawn... for example if you've got bleed dmg cards but no tower types that apply bleed, you're more likely to receive a bleed card for one of your tower types for every time you don't get one. If any of that makes sense

Weighting would go against the "roguelite" element of the game (That always means pure unweighted randomness that can and will hose you).

That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?

I mean weighting percentage chances is still random, but in a game where there is already so much RNG... map path RNG, map height RNG, "resource node" RNG.... having a *bit* less chance in one are isn't the end of the world IMO.

Also to answer that, this really only matters most in playing for achievements where you're limited in the types of towers you can build so having all damage and DOT types is a must.

On the topic of specific tower achievements - After doing them all "the proper way", meaning actualy using them in the run, I've decidedthe easiest way is to treat all of those achie runs as Ballista only runs but you also place down one other tower. Especially for (in *my* opinion) the useless ones like frost tower or camp... I'm not saying that they're useless
in general, mind, I just find them pretty unneeded in that particular type of a challenge.

With that mindset the dot cards are frigging epicsince - you get through all of the regens, banditry is giving you more ballistas and unis give you levels for all of your 150'ish ballistas at once.

Plus, also... regedit the crap out of the save when attempting those achies... Don't waste your time replaying the boring beginning over and over...

I mean, you're free to do so, I'm not gonna stop you, but I value my time quite highly and lack of a decent respec mechanic would be a game breaker for me if I didn't do that... and I enjoy the game very much apart from that... Even turn 4 3-way splits that screwed up my achie attempts constantly. :P

I'm doing full runs but yeah, I am just doing ballista only runs and then adding one of the towers that I need at the end for the achievement. This way you can just focus on cards that are good for ballistas and then only take one card for the tower you need later in the game.

Yeah. Although, tbh, I've found it kinda boring that way and after doing tesla I decided to do the rest with using as little ballistas and as many of the "achievement" towersas possible.
Btw - this discussion sparked a dangerous fire in me belly and I'm writing a guide that is pretty much my post above but expanded. kek. At least the game provided me with one more way to have fun. xD
[edit:spelling and stuff]

Originally posted by eatonpye:

Originally posted by KellyR:

Weighting would go against the "roguelite" element of the game (That always means pure unweighted randomness that can and will hose you).

That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?

You say 'roguelite' like it's some kind of critical goal in itself. 'Going against' things that make a game less fun shouldn't be constrained by some kind of arbitrary label.

As for 'That said, if you're trying to build a stacked deck for a limited tower type run, why are you even unlocking the DoT cards for DoT types your towers don't do?' it comes back to the horrific slog of early game when you reset XP. Besides, most towers do several kinds of DoT, and having the DoT type matching each tower's best or most developed damaged type is pretty important. And you do want to attack shields, armor and health efficiently. The current set up just makes it a lot harder to change strategies as the game progresses.

Also, to get essentials like 'draw every turn' it's necessary to unlock a lot of cards. One can unlock towers one never intends to use and take all the cheap cards, up to a point, but the DoT cards are actually useful and not too expensive.

Because it is a design goal. For the developer, and for fans of the roguelite genre. Game was advertised as a roguelite tower defense, and a non-trivial number of people bought it for the roguelite elements. There's a lot of people who enjoy the pure luck RNG element where you have to adapt to bad hands and such, and sometimes just get screwed and can't win.

I think rogouelite is a more flexible term than, say, roguelike, and while I don't mind sometimes having impossible situations, the amount of RNG in this particular game seems excessive. I say seems, because I think there are ways to randomize things within categories- after all, the game doesn't offer you map tiles when you're trying to draw cards, and won't give you tower-specific cards until you take the tower in question. A little more of that would improve game play a lot, while still retaining a lot of randomness.