Hi everyone!
I'm happy to announce that the long-awaited Forge Update is out now in the Beta branch! It'll likely stay there for a week or two for testing (as it's a big one), and then make it's way to the normal branch.
To access the beta branch, do the following:
Right click on Desktop Defender in your Steam Library
Click Properties and then Betas
Click beta
Anyways, let me explain the standout changes!
After Rebirthing for the first time, you now unlock Forging. Clicking on this menu will allow you to combine two pieces of loot on the floor to make an even stronger piece of loot if they're part of a crafting recipe.
Crafted loot has a new unique Ω tier, and they're all stronger than the current maximum ∞ tier! They also use a mix of lower and higher tier loot to be crafted, so all sorts of loot is useful now even if you're far into the game!
This system (and tons of this update) is actually based on the crafting system in our other idle corner game, Card Corner! So if you like what you see, make sure to check that game out. You can even get a discount if you already own Desktop Defender!
Speaking of loot, we've added 56 new ones! That means that we've gone from 108 -> 164 loot types... That's a crazy 52% increase! Some of these are in E - A tiers, but there are 4 new ones in S tier, 8 in ∞, and 29 in the new Ω tier!
Because lower tier loot can also be now used to craft Ω loot, we've rebalanced the loot rarity drop table to make it possible for any rarity to show up at any level, while still not feeling frustrated that most loot is unusable!
On top of that, we've taken even more inspiration from ourselves in Card Corner, and added Limited and Unique loot. Some of the new loot have this label, and they limit how much you can equip, but are really powerful for their rarity.
We've wanted to add a way to visualise all loot in the game for a while, and this update was the perfect opportunity to add it! The compendium is a menu that allows you to not only check all of the information about all of the loot you've ever found, but it also displays crafting recipes for Ω loot!
Because this is a new feature and the game wasn't keeping track of your discovered loot previously, loot that is not in your inventory currently will have to be rediscovered. Fortunately, even just checking loot that spawns on the ground automatically registers it to the compendium, so it should fill up pretty quickly!
Being able to swap between loot loadouts is something that rebirth grinders have been asking for a while... And I'm happy to let you know that the feature is now in the Forge Update! You get 5 loadouts, unlocked through Rebirthing, and it makes testing different builds way easier.
Because we've added tons more content, but we didn't want to force you to Rebirth a ton to unlock it all, some Rebirth levels now have multiple bonuses! Notably, you now unlock Forging after rebirthing just once, and there are a few more loot loadout bonuses early on as well.
We've also added 2 whole new rebirth bonuses with the highest one going up to 100 rebirths!
I believe the current record for max wave climbing is wave 430, but with these new changes the ceiling should be lifted by quite a bit! If you want to share your progress, make sure to join the Discord server!
Apart from adding rebirth bonuses, we've also added 15 more base levels, bringing the total up to 215. These are not super strong... Except for the final one, which I'll be explaining in the next section!
I personally feel that the level bonuses have capped out at this point, with Rebirth bonuses playing a more important role by the time you reach this point in the game. Because of this, I'm leaning towards not adding more in future updates. I'd love to hear your thoughts though, on whether you'd like to see more or not!
At level 215, you'll now unlock a new bonus that allows you to have automatic wave checkpoints! Previously, the maximum checkpoint was at wave 121, which made it quite slow to climb waves after a certain point (especially when you're going for the world record, which is about wave 430). Now, every 10 waves sets an automatic checkpoint with the level 215 bonus, so the only limit to your progression is the power of your build!
And that's it for the Forge Update's new additions! We'll of course be fixing/balancing while it's in the beta branch, and as mentioned before, probably push it out to the main branch in 1 or 2 weeks.
Another thing I wanted to mention is that we recently announced another corner idle game, Desktop Detective.
If you're liking what you see in this update, Desktop Detective has lots of similar systems that make it super synergistic. I would really appreciate it if you could wishlist it!
Also as always, if you're enjoying the game, I would REALLY appreciate it if you reviewed it. It's the best thing you can do to support the game if you're enjoying it!
Thanks again for playing Desktop Detective, and I hope you enjoy playing the new content!
- Conrad, Lead Developer