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Zoythrus™
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Hello, Polytopians!
It’s time for Balance Pass 2! We’re making some big changes and we’d like to take some time to talk about them!
Release notes for release 2.0.58
General Balance:
-Increase income for clearing forest to 2*
-Increase price of knight to 10*
The change to forest chopping has been getting some mixed results, so we thought to get the best of both worlds by keeping tree chopping in Free Spirit so that tech power is more easily managed, but bringing it up to 2* for increased usefulness, which should make it viable again. Because Knights are now much more easy to get, their cost has been raised to 10*, making Knight rushes a little more difficult.
-Lowered price of burn forest to 2*
-Elyrion can no longer burn forest
If the Riding branch of techs is meant to revolve around tree destruction and freedom of movement, you should actually get some tools to help you do just that. Burn Forest was often too expensive to be worth it, so we reduced the cost. Elyrion can’t burn trees anymore, because that’s a sacriligious disgrace in their culture.
-Improved map generator with distribution of resources closer tied to the tribe nature settings
This is a fancy way of saying that we’ve tried to make resource spawns a little more consistent to the nature of the tribes themselves by using terrain feature ratios. Most tribes will have a “preferred resource” when their terrain gets generated, such as Hoodrick starting with animals and Oumaji starting with fruit, and others will have a more reliable distribution of resources. We hope this change makes starts for the tribes more consistently viable.
-Replaced Giant reward in ruins with a Veteran Swordsman
A common complaint was games ending far too fast because someone managed to get a random Giant out of a ruin on turn 5, drastically shifting the balance of power very early on. We have removed these ruin Giants (and other super units) and replaced them with a Veteran Swordsman who can be found on any turn. They’re a bit more mobile because they have Dash, but aren’t nearly as hardy as a Giant, so they should be more fun to play with and around.
-Replaced tech stealing when meeting a new tribe with star rewards based on that tribes score (3* per 1000 points rounded up, capped at 12*)
Probably the biggest change in this patch, you can’t steal techs from other tribes when you meet them anymore. This has been replaced with a star reward based on their score when you meet them. We changed this for a few reasons, but primarily to both keep a tribe’s starting tech a bit more unique for longer and to function as a soft comeback mechanic for tribes who can’t upgrade their cities on turn 0. This change also applies to the Domination gamemode, where tech stealing was normally disabled.
-Mountain defence bonus moved to Climbing tech
This small change was designed to give Xin-Xi a small buff and function as an overall buff for both mountains and the Climbing branch of technologies as a whole. This is a small step to making it much more fun, interesting, and important.
-Ruins can now appear next to villages and more likely on mountains
Removing ruin Giants wasn’t the only change to ruins this patch, as they’re now more frequently placed on mountains and can now appear adjacent to villages, giving them a wider variety of places to appear.
-Some map types have been adjusted
Archipelago and Continents have been given adjustments so that they’re more uniform and interesting. Archipelagos should look more like….an archipelago, and Continents have been smoothed out a little so that they look better.
Cymanti Balance:
The Cymanti were stronger than we originally thought, so they’ve been given some adjustments that we hope bring them down to a more reasonable level. We didn’t want to just nerf them across the board, but give them a collection of buffs and nerfs to make them more fun to both play and play against.
-Increased defence reduction when poisoned
-Poison cures directly when healing unit once
Poison has been made more potent, removing defense bonuses and reducing defense by 30% (up from 20%), but is also now much more easily removed. Simply Recover or use the healing from a Mind Bender/Mycelium Stalk to remove it. This should make battles and sieges a bit more dynamic and require a more strategic use of poison.
-Removed movement penalty on Fungus
A very common complaint was Fungus being frustrating since it removed most movement options. This has been removed, and now it just harms and poisons units.
-Remove boost effect when attacked and exploring ruins
Boosts are a crucial part of the Cymanti strategy, but could be frustrating to play around. To emphasize that it’s a primarily offensive skill, getting attacked or using most abilities will remove the boost. Exploring a ruin is tough work!
-Centipede segments can now be converted by Mind Benders, capturing the entire Centipede
Ah, finally, a proper counter to Centipedes! :)
-Phychi get the “Surprise” ability that makes it avoid counter attacks
Since Phychis are so fragile they often get wiped out easily when attacking other ranged units. So, to help them out a little, we taught them a new, sneaky ability - “Surprise”. This means that they won’t trigger retaliation attacks whenever they attack, so you can now use them to more easily apply poison to Battleships, Giants, Archers, and other such things without fear of being hit (and consequently, killed).
-Raychi price increased to 8*
-Hexapod price increased to 3*
We know that the Raychi and Hexapod dominated their respective domains, so they’ve had their costs nerfed. We’ll be watching these units very closely, and we’d like to hear what you think of them now that they’ve been nerfed.
-Algae no longer gives pop, instead it connects trade networks
Algae is no longer designed to give population, but is now meant to properly function as a bridge, both for units and for your trade networks. They’ll connect to your Mycelium Stalks and allow you to connect cities across bodies of water more easily.
New Features:
-ELO rating for multiplayer games
-Show win ration on friend info
“ELO? That rating thing from chess?” Yep! We’ve added ELO rankings to Polytopia! This is a good first step into making a more fun multiplayer experience for everyone! You’ll also be able to track your win ratios against friends, just for that cherry on top of your already bitter rivalry. :)
UI Improvements:
-Added zoom in tech tree.
-Enabling/Disabling all tribes in tribe-picker screen by long pressing
-Soft keyboard no longer covers the "add friend" popup
-Multitouch improved
-Game stats info screen reworked
-Tech tree is displayed with the same background as the game-world.
-Bunch of minor bug fixes.
These don’t need as much explanation, but we’d still like to get your feedback on our UI improvements! We would like to point out the new Enable/Disable all tribes ability, so that you no longer have to manually tap the enable/disable button for all 16 tribes if you want to control the sort of opponents you find in a game.
-Updated Oumaji headscarf
Upon closer inspection, we realized that the Oumaji were wrapping their headscarves in the worst possible way, so we decided to take a trip to the Square to give them proper instruction on how to wrap their scarf around their cube heads for better sun and sand protection.
And that’s the end of Balance Pass 2’s changelog! We feel that these improvements will make the game more fun and help set the foundation for even more amazing things, like the upcoming Diplomacy technology! We encourage you to look at these notes as “stepping stones” toward something much greater, as we're currently testing out some new ideas. Stay tuned for more updates in the very near future!
It’s time for Balance Pass 2! We’re making some big changes and we’d like to take some time to talk about them!
Release notes for release 2.0.58
General Balance:
-Increase income for clearing forest to 2*
-Increase price of knight to 10*
The change to forest chopping has been getting some mixed results, so we thought to get the best of both worlds by keeping tree chopping in Free Spirit so that tech power is more easily managed, but bringing it up to 2* for increased usefulness, which should make it viable again. Because Knights are now much more easy to get, their cost has been raised to 10*, making Knight rushes a little more difficult.
-Lowered price of burn forest to 2*
-Elyrion can no longer burn forest
If the Riding branch of techs is meant to revolve around tree destruction and freedom of movement, you should actually get some tools to help you do just that. Burn Forest was often too expensive to be worth it, so we reduced the cost. Elyrion can’t burn trees anymore, because that’s a sacriligious disgrace in their culture.
-Improved map generator with distribution of resources closer tied to the tribe nature settings
This is a fancy way of saying that we’ve tried to make resource spawns a little more consistent to the nature of the tribes themselves by using terrain feature ratios. Most tribes will have a “preferred resource” when their terrain gets generated, such as Hoodrick starting with animals and Oumaji starting with fruit, and others will have a more reliable distribution of resources. We hope this change makes starts for the tribes more consistently viable.
-Replaced Giant reward in ruins with a Veteran Swordsman
A common complaint was games ending far too fast because someone managed to get a random Giant out of a ruin on turn 5, drastically shifting the balance of power very early on. We have removed these ruin Giants (and other super units) and replaced them with a Veteran Swordsman who can be found on any turn. They’re a bit more mobile because they have Dash, but aren’t nearly as hardy as a Giant, so they should be more fun to play with and around.
-Replaced tech stealing when meeting a new tribe with star rewards based on that tribes score (3* per 1000 points rounded up, capped at 12*)
Probably the biggest change in this patch, you can’t steal techs from other tribes when you meet them anymore. This has been replaced with a star reward based on their score when you meet them. We changed this for a few reasons, but primarily to both keep a tribe’s starting tech a bit more unique for longer and to function as a soft comeback mechanic for tribes who can’t upgrade their cities on turn 0. This change also applies to the Domination gamemode, where tech stealing was normally disabled.
-Mountain defence bonus moved to Climbing tech
This small change was designed to give Xin-Xi a small buff and function as an overall buff for both mountains and the Climbing branch of technologies as a whole. This is a small step to making it much more fun, interesting, and important.
-Ruins can now appear next to villages and more likely on mountains
Removing ruin Giants wasn’t the only change to ruins this patch, as they’re now more frequently placed on mountains and can now appear adjacent to villages, giving them a wider variety of places to appear.
-Some map types have been adjusted
Archipelago and Continents have been given adjustments so that they’re more uniform and interesting. Archipelagos should look more like….an archipelago, and Continents have been smoothed out a little so that they look better.
Cymanti Balance:
The Cymanti were stronger than we originally thought, so they’ve been given some adjustments that we hope bring them down to a more reasonable level. We didn’t want to just nerf them across the board, but give them a collection of buffs and nerfs to make them more fun to both play and play against.
-Increased defence reduction when poisoned
-Poison cures directly when healing unit once
Poison has been made more potent, removing defense bonuses and reducing defense by 30% (up from 20%), but is also now much more easily removed. Simply Recover or use the healing from a Mind Bender/Mycelium Stalk to remove it. This should make battles and sieges a bit more dynamic and require a more strategic use of poison.
-Removed movement penalty on Fungus
A very common complaint was Fungus being frustrating since it removed most movement options. This has been removed, and now it just harms and poisons units.
-Remove boost effect when attacked and exploring ruins
Boosts are a crucial part of the Cymanti strategy, but could be frustrating to play around. To emphasize that it’s a primarily offensive skill, getting attacked or using most abilities will remove the boost. Exploring a ruin is tough work!
-Centipede segments can now be converted by Mind Benders, capturing the entire Centipede
Ah, finally, a proper counter to Centipedes! :)
-Phychi get the “Surprise” ability that makes it avoid counter attacks
Since Phychis are so fragile they often get wiped out easily when attacking other ranged units. So, to help them out a little, we taught them a new, sneaky ability - “Surprise”. This means that they won’t trigger retaliation attacks whenever they attack, so you can now use them to more easily apply poison to Battleships, Giants, Archers, and other such things without fear of being hit (and consequently, killed).
-Raychi price increased to 8*
-Hexapod price increased to 3*
We know that the Raychi and Hexapod dominated their respective domains, so they’ve had their costs nerfed. We’ll be watching these units very closely, and we’d like to hear what you think of them now that they’ve been nerfed.
-Algae no longer gives pop, instead it connects trade networks
Algae is no longer designed to give population, but is now meant to properly function as a bridge, both for units and for your trade networks. They’ll connect to your Mycelium Stalks and allow you to connect cities across bodies of water more easily.
New Features:
-ELO rating for multiplayer games
-Show win ration on friend info
“ELO? That rating thing from chess?” Yep! We’ve added ELO rankings to Polytopia! This is a good first step into making a more fun multiplayer experience for everyone! You’ll also be able to track your win ratios against friends, just for that cherry on top of your already bitter rivalry. :)
UI Improvements:
-Added zoom in tech tree.
-Enabling/Disabling all tribes in tribe-picker screen by long pressing
-Soft keyboard no longer covers the "add friend" popup
-Multitouch improved
-Game stats info screen reworked
-Tech tree is displayed with the same background as the game-world.
-Bunch of minor bug fixes.
These don’t need as much explanation, but we’d still like to get your feedback on our UI improvements! We would like to point out the new Enable/Disable all tribes ability, so that you no longer have to manually tap the enable/disable button for all 16 tribes if you want to control the sort of opponents you find in a game.
-Updated Oumaji headscarf
Upon closer inspection, we realized that the Oumaji were wrapping their headscarves in the worst possible way, so we decided to take a trip to the Square to give them proper instruction on how to wrap their scarf around their cube heads for better sun and sand protection.
And that’s the end of Balance Pass 2’s changelog! We feel that these improvements will make the game more fun and help set the foundation for even more amazing things, like the upcoming Diplomacy technology! We encourage you to look at these notes as “stepping stones” toward something much greater, as we're currently testing out some new ideas. Stay tuned for more updates in the very near future!