Quad Towers Update 1.4

## Update 1.4

It's been 16 years since Element TD was originally released back in WarCraft III. Since then, we've ported it many times, eventually leading to Element TD 2. In all that time, some towers were changed out, but we never truly added new ones.

Until now. After 16 years, Element TD 2 finally adds 15 New Towers! Combine 4 different elements to form powerful Quad Element Towers! From global ranged snipers, to revamped classics, to chucking creeps forward, we've got a lot of brand new effects ready to change how you approach your favorite builds! Except 3 Element Builds. They've got enough love already.

On top of that, we have a new GPU performance feature called AMD FSR. There's also New Cosmetics, Improvements, Fixes, and a host of Balance Changes (which means another Score Leaderboard Reset). Oh, and we have a fancy trailer for the new Quad Element Towers. Check it out below, and read on for the full notes!

## Towers

### Quad Element Towers

Countless amounts of people have been requesting new towers for years, and at last, we're finally delivering on that! Each one requires 4 Different Elements and costs 4000 Gold (or 2500 Gold when upgraded from a Triple). All of them have their unique roles, but in terms of what this overall adds to the game:

* Fills out gaps in their associated 4 Element Builds
* Expands build orders
* Allow "weird element combinations" that rely more on Level 1 Towers to scale into the endgame
* And more! With that, let's get on with the details!

Railgun Tower

Singularity Tower

Doom Tower

Phantom Zone Tower

Plague Tower

Crystal Spire Tower

Tsunami Tower

Obelisk Tower

Rage Tower

Archdruid Tower

Life Altar Tower

Tesla Tree Tower

Gravity Cannon Tower

Nuclear Tower

Shredder Tower

## Changes

### **AMD FSR**

This is a new feature under Graphics Settings. In a nutshell, it'll reduce visual clarity in exchange for a performance boost. If you're familiar with DLSS, it's similar to that. At the lower end, the visual clarity loss is barely noticeable while FPS goes up by 10-20%, and at the higher end, the visuals are definitely less clear, but we've gotten reports of performance doubling on that option.
Do note, turning on AMD FSR requires Anti-Aliasing to be turned on, which has also been improved to higher quality.

### **New Cosmetics**

5 New Trails have been added! All of these are based on the new Quads

* Level 75 - Phantom Wave
* Level 80 - Static Shock
* Level 85 - Spiritual Trifecta
* Level 90 - Singularity
* Level 95 - Tsunami
* Elemental Master Trail is now the Level 100 Trail

5 New Wings have been added! Based on a mix of new Quads and updated effects.

* Level 80 - Burning Wisps
* Level 85 - Tesla Branches
* Level 90 - Star Rose Wings
* Level 95 - Wings of Doom
* Level 100 - Eternal Blaze

Ride the wave into battle!

### **Improvements**

* Unity Version bumped from 2020.3.11 to 2020.3.21
* Localizations updated for: German, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Korean, Swedish, Dutch, French, Portuguese
* Main Menu reorganized:
	+ Extras menu has been nuked
	+ Singleplayer now has a Replays tab, which contains:
		- Ghost Mode against Leaderboard Replays
		- Ghost Mode against Local Replays
		- View Local Replays
	+ Profile has been renamed to Customize, and now contains the following menus:
		- Customize Builder
		- Customize Towers
		- Tower Table, which now lets you directly select a tower from here to customize it
		- Stats
		- Achievements Credits has been moved to Settings
* Attack & Ability VFX for numerous towers have been updated. This should result in less "glow stacks" while also looking more visually consistent and more performant.
	+ This includes Blacksmith, Well, Trickery, Poison, Ice, Vapor, Geyser, Nova, Runic, Flooding, Wisp, Polar, Flamethrower, Haste, Root, Muck, & Periodic.
* Adjusted options for Damage Number Pop-ups:
	+ On Towers: Replaces "Primary Target", this now places damage number pop-ups over towers instead of creeps
	+ On Creeps: Relabel of "All Targets"
	+ Off: Same as before
* War Mode has received some adjustments:
	+ Summon Swarm now requires at least 3 Different Elements before it becomes available
	+ Summon Mega now requires a Level 2 Element before it becomes available
	+ HP scaling increased from 20% to 21% per wave, and 25% starting from Wave 45 onwards. That doesn't sound like much, but by Wave 44, it's roughly 40% higher than before.
	+ Composite + Healing moved from Wave 45 to Wave 44, replacing Composite + Regeneration
	+ Boss Creeps now start at Wave 45
	+ Bounty now caps at Wave 44's bounty amount of 482 per creep
* In Ranked, if the opponent has died and you overtake them in Score, you now get the victory instantly instead of having to play the rest of the game out.
* Towers that are in-construction can no longer be buffed by Blacksmith, Well & Trickery
* Damage Chart now has an "Average Damage" checkbox.
* Selecting a tower now lists the total damage it's ever done, right below total kills.
* Trickery Clones are no longer nuked when you build over them
* Variant Map selection in Lobby moved to be below Map
* Boss Hunt game length starting gold increased from 120k to 125k

## **Fixes**

* Fixed a bug in Ranked where both players could end up in the same slot
* All range & AoE related values have been changed back from Floats to FixedPoint. This should reduce the frequency of desyncs.
* Variant column on the Leaderboards removed. Replaced with a Difficulty column.
* Fixed Jinx doing the Michael Jackson when rotating
* Fixed Transference tooltip missing in Status Bar
* Fixed a bug in Ghost Mode where, if you outlast a ghost during the Boss Waves, the game freezes instead of going on
* Fixed a rare nullref freeze error with the Boss Hunter achievements in Teams

## **Balance**

General

* Starting from Wave 46 to the end, the game now scales up by 19% HP per wave, up from the usual rate of 15.7% per wave.
	+ For reference, in Version 1.3, we made it so it'd go up by 20% HP per wave starting from Wave 51. In general, the late-game scales up to be up to 10% harder than the previous version, since most builds are now better equipped to handle it.
	+ Wave 56+ still goes up at a rate of 25% HP per wave.
* Level 3 Elemental Boss HP increased by roughly 4%
* Income Upgrade passive gold bonus increased from +5% to +6%
* Slows applied from AoE attacks won't be reppalied through Shields
* Fast creeps no longer ignore other speed boosts
* Temporal creeps can no longer trigger their ability and survive through an attack that would kill them
* Periodic damage reduced from 56000 to 55000

#### Single Element

* Light damage increased from 110 to 120
* Darkness adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 280 to 300
	+ Bounce range increased from 500 to 750
	+ HP Removal increased from 7.5% to 8%
* Water adjusted:
	+ Bounce range increased from 100 to 125
	+ Bounce damage reduced from 45% to 40%

* Nature
	+ Damage Increased from 85 to 90

#### Dual Element

* Atom damage increased from 300 to 315
* Lightning adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 145 to 180
	+ Bounce count reduced from 4 / 5 / 7 to 3 / 4 / 6
* Ice default priority changed from Near to Front
* Infernal damage increased from 650 to 700
* Solar damage-per-second increased from 105 to 110
* Bloom adjusted:
	+ Damage reduced from 375 to 350
	+ Recharge delay is now affected by Well Buff
	+ Recharge delay increased from 1 / 0.66 / 0.33 to 1 / 0.7 / 0.4 seconds
* Geyser adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 1000 to 1050
	+ Ability AoE reduced from 300 / 350 / 400 to 300

#### Triple Element

* Astral damage increased from 1900 to 2000
* Runic ability AoE increased from 250 to 300
* Wisp reset time reduced from 7 to 6 seconds
* Polar HP Removal reduced from 12% / 24% to 11% / 22%
* Haste attack speed gain per hit increased from 6% to 7%
* Impulse damage increased from 2400 to 2700
* Quake shockwave damage increased from 2500 to 2600
* Muck damage increased from 650 to 1000
* Periodic Got some love on its visuals this patch in the form of blinding rainbow blasts!

This patch has been in the making for quite a while, and we'd like to put out a special thanks to certain community members that went above and beyond to help us pull off this monumental release:

* Taencred - For always being there to test each alpha build, post bugs, and confirm when things are finally working right
* wadebbqwall2 - For making the fancy trailer as well as helping on GIFs and presentation Minacious Grace - For constant balance input and testing
* Scamper9 - For joining on test sessions, and finding a way to break the game with the most unlikely element combination
* And everyone else that chipped in on testing and giving us feedback!We hope you all enjoy trying out the new Quad Element Towers, plus enhanced performance options and all the other things we snuck in.With

15 New Towers at your disposal, you'll have all the tools in your arsenal needed to conquer your friends and foes!

Or get confused when you have all 6 Elements.

That's a lot of towers. Have fun learning them all!

*This Patch Launched on December 12th, 2021.*