It's time to wrap up the first King of the Hill Season of the Early Access phase!

The season that just ended was a "calibration" one. What the hell does this mean? Let me explain.

Overall, 8000 players from 79 groups got into the rating. We will promote the top 3% of the players (3-4 competitors from each group) to the big leagues: the Grandmaster league! Next top 27% of each group are starting the next season in the Amateurs league.

The most heated battle went down in the first group. It wasn't intended but that's exactly what happened: the most experienced players who had played the demo ended up there. It was total madness. The meta (a generally agreed upon strategy by the community - Despot's note for puny humans) changed several times during the season.

In the beginning were the Mages. But who can remember those guys now? They were made irrelevant by the melee classes with magic resistance. The "Silence" mutation makes a battle against a mage-based team a walk in the park. So what melee class proved to be the strongest one then?

At first, players with Fencers on their teams were giving everyone a run for their money. They've got critical damage and you can't ignore that, my friends. Except for you can—with Fighters who can attack from range and have the "Bite" mutation. The next trend of the season were Punisher-wielding, fear-inducing Shooters with penetrating shots. But then, there are a video from Zenusoid:

https://youtu.be/yh6_qOcUCvw?t=14438
It turned out that "Cleansing" was removing the effect of the "Delayed pain" mutation the whole f'n season. With it maxed out, you just ignore all incoming damage each second. Can you believe that? On top of that, if you assemble a crew of Fencers and obtain "Sword Dance" that protects them from magic attacks, you get vicious blenders of death who just don't know what taking damage means. Can't beat that, can you? Actually, you can! By using Shooters who silence and wipe those Fencers out before they even have a chance to do anything. That's exactly what got Dranik and his Punisher-wielding army to the top of King of the Hill. You can't beat THAT, can you now?

“Actually, you can!”, thought a player names Zenusoid and did exactly the same thing as Dranik, but also threw some provoking tanks into the mix. You provoke Shooters, Fencers aka Mad Fans of Human Flesh do their spinning thing—voilà! You the King of the Hill! Congratulations, Zenusoid!



Season 2 league ranking rules:

• Top 30% from Greenhorn will move up to Amateurs;
  
• Low 20% from Amateurs will move down to Greenhorns;
  
• Top 5% from Amateurs will go to the Grandmaster league;
  
• Top 45% from Amateurs will move up to the new Veterans league;
  
• Low 50% from Grandmaster will move down to Veterans.
  

Therefore, there will be 3 leagues in the Second season and 4 leagues in the Third one. Good luck to all of you, puny humans!

The Second season starts now and will end on November 15th at 10 am PT / 19:00 CET!

New versions: the list of changes

1. 5 mutations were missing from the Mutations pool. We fixed that. These mutations can significantly influence the balance of power in King of the Hill;
   
2. The 50% evasion mutation that failed to drop anyway is now available to Cultists too;
   
3. Slow animation speed of some units used to prevent them from attacking and activating their class abilities faster. It's fixed now. Let's see what effect it has on the balance!
   
4. Food is now 30% cheaper in the Eazy mode;
   
5. We nerfed the Mutagens mode. Each floor except the first one is one room smaller. The thing is, the "More altars" mutations adds a room to a level. For experienced players that means not only an extra mutation, but also extra money.
   
6. Mythical and Legendary Shooters' items went up in price. Respective Throwers' weapons are now cheaper;
   
7. Meganewbie now receives the combined armor level of all newbies on the team;
   
8. The "Shockwave" mutation damage was doubled;
   
9. The "High Intelligence" mutation was fixed and is now applied to a certain class;
   
10. "Cleansing" no longer removes the effect of the "Delayed pain" mutation. That's enough!
    
11. "Delayed pain" mutation now drops on floors 5-11;
    
12. "Riff-Raff Fury' is temporarily removed from the mutations pool;
    
13. Enemies nerfed:
    
    
    • Mantrap now digest three times slower
      
    • Spider minions damage decreased: 299->219
      
    • Thorny's reflecting damage decreased from 20% to 15%
      

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