Version 1.6 - New Maps, New Variants, Ranked Ban Phase!

Version 1.6 - New Maps! It's Friday the 13th, and you know what that means? That's right, it's patch time! **New Maps, Map Variants** have **Leaderboards**, **Ranked** now has a Tower Ban Phase, some overdue, **Lobby UI** updates, tons of bug fixes, the usual balance shenanigans, some love for **War Mode**, and more!

**Hot Fixes:**

* Version 1.6.1
* Version 1.6.2
* Version 1.6.3

## New Maps

#### Cave

*That's right, we actually added a simple spiral map, which surprisingly was not in the game already.*

#### Cave Variant

*This map actually comes courtesies of our #map-ideas channel on our Discord! With some tweaks, of course.*

#### Space Variant

*Do I want to know how this map even works?*

#### Lowlands Co-op Map

*What a calm, peaceful map! Would be a shame if it was covered in creeps.*

## Map Variants Updated

First off, Variants now have their own maps names! And even better yet, they also have their own Leaderboards!

*That's a lot of leaderboards. Start climbing!*

Additionally, two of the existing Map Variants have been switched out for better versions from the Campaign, adapted for FFA/Teams.

#### Temple Variant

*It's like someone took the Temple Map from Mission 20 and lopped off the sides.*

#### Wasteland Variant

*4 separate paths in a FFA Map? Can you even cover everything on the first wave?*

## Co-op Boss Versions

You'll notice that instead of **Co-op Map Variants**, we now have **Co-op Boss Variants**. Each of these has their own wave order, including some **Campaign**-only creeps. Additionally, at the start of every 5th wave, a Boss will precede the wave.And yes, these also have their own **Leaderboards**.

***Transference** is here to make everyone suffer.*

*Engage Warp Speed!*

*Yes, even this diabolical boss has been added on some maps.*

## Ranked Ban Phase

At the start of a Ranked Pick or Ranked War match, there's now a 1 minute ban phase:

* Both players choose 3 towers to ban, 1 minute to select bans
* Singles & Support Towers cannot be banned (1st, 3rd, and 5th rows on Tower Table).
* Once both players have chosen their bans (or after a minute has passed), it'll reveal the towers that are banned.
* Note, it is possible for both players to ban the same tower. Banning is also optional. That said, 0 to 6 towers can be banned.
* A banned tower cannot be built or upgraded to.Additionally:

* Ranked now requires both players to accept the match within 30 seconds
* Some backend adjustments have been made, which should reduce the chance of desyncs.
* In Ranked , if a game desyncs, it'll now compare networths between both players. If the difference in networths is below 1%, it won't kill the game and should instead keep going.

*Now if a tower is OP, you can just ban it. All our balance problems solved!*
*( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)*

## Improvements

* L**obby & Lobby List UI** updates:
	+ Selecting a map pulls up its own menu.
	+ There is now a magnifying glass icon on the map preview, letting you **Zoom In.**
	+ **Co-op Map Previews** show each players' paths as colored lines.
	+ Map previews actually update when you turn on **Advanced Paths**. Doesn't apply to **Co-op.**
	+ Lobby List cleaned up, allowing for all **Settings** to be properly visible now.
* When placing a tower on a spot where another tower already exists, an indicator will tell you that you can't build there.
* C**o-op Portals** now have a different color glow around them, dependent on the player color they're supposed to match.
* If a player disconnects, their builder should now vanish.
* When viewing a replay, there's now a UI for switching player perspectives.
* **Ranked Replays** should now end when the game ends instead of going further. This includes when a desync happens in the original game.
* **MMR Search Range** no longer scales by games played, everyone gets to search everyone within 375 MMR.
* **Leaderboards** now only show 50 entries instead of 100, halving the load time.
* Adjusted how creeps scale visually over time. Should be more consistent than before, and in **Chaos** in particular, they'll actually grow properly instead of be all over the place.
* **Campaign** adjustments:
	+ Insane Difficulty option added
	+ Inferno Boss fireball now has a max range of 2000
	+ Halved the number of bosses in the last 5 waves of **Mission 25** to account for **Inferno Boss** no longer being cheesable.
* **War Mode** adjusted:
	+ Elemental Bosses are freebies, meaning you don't have to kill the bosses
	+ As a result, there's no longer 30 second breaks every 4 waves
	+ Additionally, you can't get Level 2 Elements until the 4th Pick, Level 3 Elements until the 8th Pick, and Essence Upgrade until the 10th Pick
	+ Non-damage effects no longer affect allied creeps

*Wait, there's a second row of maps? Since when were these in the game?*

## Fixes

* Potentially fixed mid-game spontaneous disconnects, particularly in laggy co-op games
* Fixed an issue where people would desync at the start of the game, causing some players to look like they've gone AFK and die immediately
* Fixed an issue where the game pausing caused people to get stuck between the loading screen and the game
* Fixed a bug in **Ranked** where the end-screen wouldn't show up
* Fixed a rare bug where a **Ranked** Game could somehow be set to Normal Difficulty
* In the off-chance a **Ranked** Game doesn't load properly, it should no longer count as a win/loss
* Fixed an issue where you could see who your ranked opponent is before the match locks in, which allowed you to Alt+F4 and dodge a guaranteed loss vs. HD
* Fixed a bug in **Boss Hunt Length** where the speed multiplier would decrease over time
* Fixed a bug where you couldn't kick someone in lobby under specific circumstances
* Fixed FFA lobby settings carrying over into **War Mode**
* Fixed **Advanced Paths**, No Interest, & No Sell not showing up as settings in the Lobby List
* Fixed **Ronalds** somehow spamming the log
* Fixed nullref error on **Tropical**
* Fixed the **Tower Table in Menu** bugging out if you did 11 element picks and pressed reset
* Fixed "Aftersock" tooltip

*Now you can walk away for 30 minutes and return without a loss!*

## Balance

### General

* Income Upgrade has been removed from the game
	+ Rather than being an "interesting choice" alongside the **Element Picks**, it's just money with no real downside. We tried various iterations of it, but as the balance kept shifting, trying to get this right was a real pain. Ultimately, we decided to gut it from the game, in favor of "do something more interesting with that 11th Element Pick".
	+ To clarify, the version that's in the Campaign still exists.
* Periodic Damage reduced from 55000 to 52000
* FFA Base HP increased from 120 to 125
* Co-op Base HP increased from 150 to 160
* War Base HP increased from 125 to 150
* The backend adjustments made to reduce desyncs affected the accuracy of range and AoE. It's relatively minor, but you may notice towers clipping spots a little easier than before.

### Duals

* Atom damage reduced from 330 to 310
* Poison duration increased from 16 to 17 seconds
* Disease reworked:
	+ Damage increased from 95 to 150
	+ Old Effect: Deals more damage the lower the target's HP is. Formula = [(Max HP/Current HP) + 1]
	+ New Effect: Deals 2.5% / 3% / 4% more damage per 1% HP the target is missing
* Vapor damage increased from 1100 to 1150
* Ice damage increased from 825 to 850
* Solar damage-per-second reduced from 120 to 110
* Infernal damage increased from 700 to 750
* Howitzer damage increased from 195 to 200
* Geyser damage increased from 1050 to 1100
* Blacksmith, fixed a bug where its buff wouldn't affect certain towers:
	+ This includes Corrosion, Doom, Plague & Obelisk
* Trickery adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 325 to 450
	+ Range and cast range reduced from 1150 to 900
	+ Clone now deals 100% damage regardless of Level
	+ Duration adjusted from 20 seconds to 10 / 20 / 60 seconds
	+ Clones now carry manual/autocast settings over from the original
	+ Clones can no longer be manually sold

### Triples

* Astral damage increased from 2000 to 2100
* Ethereal damage increased from 850 to 900
* Flooding damage increased from 420 to 440
* Impulse damage increased from 2700 to 2850
* Quake adjusted:
	+ Shockwave trigger count required reduced from 8 to 5
	+ Shockwave damage reduced from 2600 to 1750
* Money passive gold rate increased from 5 to 6 gold every 15 seconds

### Quads

* **Quad Element Tower** cost increased from 4000 to 4250
* Singularity damage reduced from 15000 to 13000
* Doom adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 0 to 1000
	+ Attack speed reduced from 1.5 to 1
	+ Doom stack damage increased from 7000 to 9000
	+ Doom stack damage growth increased from 4% to 5% per second
	+ Doom stack duration increased from 10 to 20 seconds
	+ Explosion AoE reduced from 100 to 0
	+ Damage will now cap out at 25200 damage per stack
	+ Default priority changed from Near to Strong
	+ Fixed an issue where it was trying to hit the "center" of the creep instead of the pivot, meaning it could sometimes "miss" a physically large creep
	+ On the Creep UI Status Icon itself, it'll tell you both the stack count & the current % increase
	+ On the Creep UI, where HP is listed, next to it will list the total Doom damage, in purple
* Crystal Spire adjusted:
	+ AoE reduced from 100 to 0 (Note, its AoE previously didn't work, so effectively, this part is the same)
	+ Max spirits increased from 9 to 11
* Tsunami shockwave damage increased from 20k, 50k, 85k, 130k to 23k, 55k, 95k, 145k
* Rage adjusted:
	+ Damage-per-second increased from 3600 to 4000
	+ Damage amp reduced from 30% to 25%
	+ Movespeed reduced from +60% to +50%
* Archdruid adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 20000 to 25000
	+ AoE reduced from 400 to 300
* Life Altar damage/attack speed buff reduced from 45% to 40%
* Tesla Tree nerfed:
	+ Damage reduced from 8000 to 7500
	+ AoE reduced from 100 to 0
* Gravity Cannon adjusted:
	+ Damage increased from 4000 to 12400
	+ Attack speed reduced from 3 to 1
	+ Speedup/Slow durations increased from 0.2 to 0.5 seconds
	+ Default priority changed from Front to Back
* Shredder adjusted:
	+ No longer speeds up split creeps by 5%
	+ Split creep HP increased from 50% to 55%
	+ Creeps split by Shredder now only count for half a kill each for Life Altar
* Nuclear adjusted:
	+ Damage reduced from 15000 to 10000
	+ Max slow reduced from 40% to 30%
	+ % HP damage-per-second increased from 0.25% to 0.35%
	+ Effect no longer applies to Elemental Bosses
	+ Fixed a bug with its damage-per-second applying inconsistently within its AoE. This should be an increase compared to before.

### Map Tweaks

* Changed the advanced path layout for Desert Variant
* Autumn Variant side paths now have reduced HP instead of reduced speed
* Winter Variant HP reduced by 20% on both paths
	+ On Advanced, only the long path is reduced by 20% HP
* Volcano adjusted:
	+ Short Paths 2 & 6 sped up by 15%
	+ Long Paths sped up 20-30%, HP lowered by 10%
	+ Middle mountain finally removed, replaced with build spots
* Tundra lower-left mountains pushed back, build spots added in that area
* Pinnacle adjusted:
	+ Short Paths changed from +10% HP / +10% Movespeed to just +10% HP
	+ Long Paths sped up 20-30%, HP lowered by 10-20%

### Specializations

Some of these were updated in Version 1.5, we just failed to note them or update the tooltips properly, so the following list notes changes from both1.5 & 1.6.

* Water Spec 1 bounce range increased from 300 to 500
* Water Spec 2 bounce damage reduced from 75% to 70%
* Lightning Spec 2 bounce count reduced from 6 / 8 / 10 to 5 / 7 / 9
* Vapor Spec 1 adjusted:
	+ Old: Damage reduced by 40%. Bonus damage per creep increased to 6% / 9% / 12%.
	+ New: Range reduced to 750. Bonus damage per creep increased to 5% / 10% / 15%.
* Vapor Spec 2 bonus damage per creep increased from -9% / -6% / -3% to 0%
* Ice Spec 2 cannot be stunned cooldown reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds
* Well Spec 1 range increased to 1500
* Blacksmith Spec 1 range increased to 1500
* Trickery Spec 1 adjusted:
	+ Old: Range increased to 1500. Clone deals 32% / 96% / 288% damage.
	+ New: Range increased to 1500. Clone duration reduced to 8 / 16 / 48 seconds.
* Trickery Spec 2 adjusted:
	+ Old: Range reduced to 250. Clone deals 50% / 150% / 450% damage for 20 seconds.
	+ New: Range reduced to 250. Clone duration increased to 12 / 24 / 72 seconds.
* Laser Spec 1 damage gain per nearby creep increased from 500 / 2000 to 1000 / 4000
* Haste Spec 2 attack speed gain reduced from 5% to 3%
* Quake Spec 1 adjusted:
	+ Old: Trigger count reduced to 4 attacks, Shockwave Damage reduced by 40%.
	+ New: Trigger count reduced to 3 attacks, Shockwave Damage reduced by 30%.
* Quake Spec 2 adjusted:
	+ Old: Shockwave Damage increased by 60%.
	+ New: Shockwave Damage increased by 150%.
* Money Spec 2 bonus damage based on Unspent Gold increased from 25% / 50% to 30% / 60%
* Windstorm Spec 2 AoE reduced from 400 to 300

## Element TD 2 Wiki

If you didn't know, we actually have an Element TD 2 Wiki. Go into greater depth on each map, tower, specific mechanics, and even version history! Big shoutout to a few specific members of our Discord Community for creating and maintaining the Wiki:

* draktok
* Sacropedia
* SilverDeath

## What's Next?

Somehow, this patch ended up being larger than 1.4's Quad Element Patch. Despite that, there's a few things we ran out of time to add. Insane in Campaign, but no 5-star score thresholds? New maps, but no new Achievements? No fancy new cosmetics?
Fret not, everything we missed this patch will be coming in Version 1.7, set to release in July. This'll also act as an interim patch while the ever mysterious Mazing DLC is being developed. We still don't have a more specific time frame on it or details to show you yet. We'll start showing off Mazing when we're ready.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the new maps, the Variants you didn't know existed due to poor UI, and all the other juicy additions!