Welcome to Update 1.4

It's been almost a year since we've first released Cubelander. Felt like yesterday when we were making our menu music work, and enemies to move properly!

We've reworked the Mrithus and Overlord bossfights to involve a lot more void... and less lag. We've cooked up a new track to add to our OST as well and a new addition to your arsenal...

In the meantime, enjoy the game!

- Anthony Wu
Hyperreal Games

NEW DEFENDER -> Monolith

- Extremely tough defender that violently explodes when killed
- Unlock by reaching Commander Level 90 in the QUESTS panel
- (TIP to farm XP: Playing levels and beating them on Invictus Mode grants HUGE bonuses of XP)

NEW ENEMY -> Voidlord

- Watch out for its deadly laser attack!
- Appears in the Geometric Void and summoned by Mrithus
- Extremely tough defender that takes many hits to bring down!
- Nigh-unstoppable when empowered by Void Obelisks!

Small Changes ->

- New BOSSFIGHT theme for Mrithus's Phase 2.
- Cores will no longer spawn a defender immediately when upgraded
- Autospawn rates have been reworked.
- Core regen rate now only 80% as effective as Normal on Prestige Mode and 60% as effective on Invictus Mode.
- Made Prestige and Invictus mode slightly easier, and adjusted some aspects of Normal Mode gameplay.
- You now gain XP for losing levels
- Commader XP for clearing waves in Endless Mode is now only granted for clearing waves above Wave 50. However, XP granted is significantly increased.
- You'll now need more XP in the earlier levels, less XP between levels 50-90 and more XP at levels about 90 to level up.
- Updated the Level Select UI and also credits UI
- Some enemies now have new FX!

Bugfixes ->
- Adjusted the size of the freeze effect; it should no longer be too big for some enemies
- Unlock popups should no longer spawn on top of each other
- Final wave popup should no longer appear for Endless Mode
- Sell and build tower audio should now properly play when using hotkeys to upgrade
- Boss DR should finally be fixed -> was a bug with purifier dealing excessive damage to bosses
- Mrithus no longer has broken Phase 2 Behaviour
- Fixed twitching of price text when upgrading cores and towers
- Fixed enemies clipping across the map in Level 1-3
- Cube Corp, Hydra Cannon and Frozen Shot now correctly show up in Tower Select.
- Vaporiser now correctly deals 1% of DPS when not fully ramped up.
- Symmetria Crystal no longer grants 1 healing p/second at Level 1-3
- Towers now sell for full price before the game starts (so you can pick up and place towers before the game starts as needed!)
- Waves no longer get more dense as the level goes on in Prestige and Invictus Mode.

Balance Changes

Game Systems

==VOIDBURN DEBUFF==
- Voidburn debuff now deals 15-30 + 8% current health true damage p/second (from 25-50 magic damage p/second)
(Developer notes: For a final boss debuff, voidbuff has always felt a bit underwhelming, and especially against tankier defenders that would often not even be scratched. We're going to bump up the damage of Voidburn to deal max health damage to fix it.)

==BURN DEBUFF==
- Burn debuff no longer applies slow or attack reduction.
- Burn damage adjusted from 7 + (80% burn stacks) and 1.5 + (0.05 p/burn stack)% missing health physical damage to 24 + (140% burn stacks) p/second
- Burn damage no longer ignores 5% armor.
(Developer's notes: The burn debuff has always lacked clarity, decreasing attack and speed when players don't really expect it. We're going to remove those extra aspects, and compensate it by buffing its damage)

Towers

Symmetria Crystal ->

(NEW) Now deals 175/350/525/650 bonus true damage to boss units
Defender heal on/hit increased from 80% of damage on hit to 90% of damage on hit.
No longer applies a 20% slow on enemies for 1 second
(Developer's notes: Giving Symmetria Crystal some utility against bosses, and also making the tower more fun to use on defenders)

Cube Launcher ->

Damage p/shot decreased from 12/24/48/72 to 12/23/45/69
(Developer's notes: Winding back a bit of Cube Launcher's damage, as the combination of range and price makes the DPS a bit too valuable.)

Frozen Shot ->

Explosion radius decreased from 5 to 3
Post-freeze slow increased from 50% to 60%
(Developer's notes: Without making the Frozen Shot a better Cubic Tesla, we're going to buff it's stalling capabilities.)

EMP Field ->

Recharge time increased from 10/9/8/7 seconds to 10/9.5/9/8.5 seconds
(Developer's notes: EMP Field is a bit too strong on Invictus strategies, and given it already provides instant damage upon upgrade, we think it's time to trim some stats elsewhere to put the tower in a more balanced state.)

Purifier ->

Cost increased from $800/$1500/$2200/$3500 to $800/$1700/$2750/$4500
Energy cost increased from 10/11/12/13 to 15 flat
Only Laser DPS is buffed by Radar
(Developer's notes: We don't want the player to feel like the Purifier is the ONLY option for good DPS, and to run it in every loadout. We still wanted to preserve the thematic of the Purifier being an "Ultimate Weapon", but are going to make it significantly more risky for players to use it, especially on maps with less available resources.)

Vapoiser ->

Ramping time decreased from 4 to 3.5 seconds
DPS increased from 700/1200/2100/3300 to 725/1250/2300/3650
(Developer's notes: Vaporiser's single target and backloaded DPS significantly hurts it, especially against strong and fast enemies. We're going to increase the Vaporiser's uptime and DPS to allow it better to slice through beefy enemies.)

Hot Shot ->

Damage increased from 27/34/42/51 to 35/44/51/60
(Developer's notes: Hot Shot has essentially lost a lot of its utility following the Burn rework, so this will serve as a compensatory buff.)

Cookie Oven ->

Cooldown adjusted from 6/6/12/12 seconds to 8 flat
Money p/interval adjusted from $20/28/75/125 to $30/45/65/100
(Developer's notes: Cookie Oven has felt a bit inconsistent to use, especially on Levels 3 and 4, where playtesters felt like the money generation intervals were completely random. This should hopefully fix it.)

Energy Pylon ->

Energy p/interval increased from 10/15/20/25 to 15/21/27/33
Cost increased from $150/250/400/600 to $150/300/450/650
(Developer's notes: Given that energy can easily be generated via the Core, Reactor and Cube Corp, the Pylon is feeling a bit underwhelming, especially if used in conjunction with the Oven, taking up 2 slots. This change should hopefully make it more justifiable to spend a slot on energy generation alone.)

Cube Corp ->

Energy cost removed
Energy p/interval decreased from 10/20/30/50 to 7/15/25/35
NEW: Maximum money p/interval now 100/200/300/500
NEW: Maximum energy p/interval now 70/150/250/350
(Developer's notes: On a similar vein, we're seeing Cube Corp overtake all other eco towers as the premier money generating tower on some maps. While we do like to see players optimise their setups to maximise income, on levels such as 2-9, the Cube Corp can trivialise levels. We're going to roll back its energy generation, and apply a cap to make its maximums less gamebreaking.

Symmetria Sword ->

Energy cost reduced from 4 to 1
Smited now causes enemies to take 60/130/220/350% extra damage from defenders (from 60/120/200/300%)
(Developer's notes: We're seeing many defender users opt for the DPS of towers rather than use a slot for augmenting defenders. Going to reduce the risk of using the sword to sweeten the option of taking this tower!)

Defenders

Mage ->

Attack range increased from 25 to 30
Explosion radius increased from 2 to 4
Attack damage increased from 125 to 135
Recharge increased from 7 to 8 seconds
(Developer's notes: We're going to apply a buff to the Mage, as it has been often overshadowed by its more expensive counterparts.)

Paladin ->

Health increased from 385 to 435
Attack damage decreased from 93 to 64
Explosion radius decreased from 6 to 4
Recharge increased from 33 to 36 seconds
(Developer's notes: We've been trying to give each defender a more unique and distinct role from each other. The Paladin will now be the tanker, and we're trading off a bit of its offensive capabilities, for increased survivability.)

Empyrean ->

Health decreased from 210 to 195
Attack damage increased from 35 to 38
Burn stacks on hit increased from 34 to 42
Shield now triggers from 30% health (from 33%)
Shield duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds
Shield HP increased from 75 to 85
Heal p/second upon shield proc increased from 18 to 20 HP/sec
(Developer's notes: Similarly with the Empyrean, we're going to make the shield shorter but higher impact, so that it's good for surviving burst and less good for extended exchanges. We're also bumping up its DPS given the burn rework.)

Restorer ->
Attack damage decreased from 61 to 51
(Developer's notes: Same with Restorer. Because it's already in a strong spot, we're going to trim its firepower to cement it more as a healing defender rather than a true damage DPS machine.)

Enemies

Cryonova ->

Health increased from 175000 to 180000
(Developer's notes: The Cryonova bossfight is lasting a bit shorter than we'd like to admit. We're going to apply a bit more tankiness to it.)

Mrithus ->

REWORKED!

Phase 1 Health reduced from 250000 to 175000
Phase 2 Health reduced from 250000 to 180000
Time to complete Phase 2 increased from 5 to 8 minutes
Voidblobs now get faster as the battle continues on Prestige Mode and above
Get a huge burst of money, energy upon reaching Phase 2 (Resets inflation on Prestige Mode)
Now summons Void Obelisks on Phase 2 to heal and protect itself. Take down the void obeslisk to damage him!
Summons voidlords and empowers them through Void Obelisks in Phase 2.
Mrithus has reduced agressivity when void obelisks are alive.
Less likely to use tower destroy attack many times in a row
Start with more money and energy
(Developer's notes: Now, we've remade the Mrithus bossfight from the ground up. Phase 1 will largely be the same, but Phase 2 will introduce a new gimmick where you've got to down his Void Obelisks. They provide Mrithus with a shield and heal him overtime, so be sure to take them down fast!)

Overlord ->

AI tweaked to prioritise spawning underlords if there are none alive.
Less likely to use tower frier attack if no Underlords are alive.
On Invictus mode, will always buff nearby Underlords if more than 4 are alive at once.
Bullets now explode more violently.
Overlord speed buff now weaker, but lasts for longer
Tower fry attack now affects less tiles
(Developer's notes: These are just QOL changes so that the Overlord stops buffing Underlords when they are NONE alive!)

Underlord ->

HP decreased from 8000 to 7200
New FX when buffed
Now immune to all slows

Voidling ->

Now heals and gains increased resistances when a Void Obelisk is alive