The Variety Update Part 2 Hotfix #2

Hotfix #2 (Version 2003)

Thanks for all the community feedback on the last update- I've made some fixes and improvements based on it! 🦀

General

• Added cactus destructibles to the Desert biome

  Balance Changes

• Double destructibles (both combat and reward) spawn in the Desert as most islands there are quite open and bare
• Totems are both more likely to initially spawn AND are more likely to spawn in groups
• Shop prices have been decreased by 25% but scale a bit more sharply when looping (so building into economy becomes more important in the late game but shops are more accessible in the early game). Greed loot now is worth exactly the same as Epic loot
• Slippery Slope now scales with each island similar to the Paycheck buff in the previous patch. It gives more than double the amount that Paycheck does so I’ll keep an eye on it in terms of balance. Also added total crystals gained stat for Slippery Slope in the inventory UI
• A lot of players have mentioned that they are seeing too many duplicates (loot with a + over it that is something you already have in your inventory) too early on in a run which pollutes chest choices so the initial chance for finding duplicates has been lowered
• Armor now gives enemies less health and reduces elemental damage by 50% instead of 75%. This should make fighting heavily armored enemies with elemental builds feel much less tedious
• Elemental enemies now take 50% less debuff stacks of that matching element (down from 75% less stacks). This means Fire Crabs or Poison Ants now will feel more consistent to fight with fire / poison builds
• Elites now have 25% resistance to elemental debuffs (previously 0% resistance) and Bosses now have 50% resistance (previously 75%). These changes will make elemental builds much more consistent across elite and boss fights, notably the armored ant boss which could take forever if relying on an elemental build
• Elemental enemies matching element resistance decreased from -50% to -25%
• Previously, enemy attack and movement speed increased by 1% with each island. This didn’t really end up feeling very noticeable so it now is applied per loop instead for a more noticeable jump in challenge (the values are unchanged from before, just applied at a different time)
• Scorpion health buffed by 25% (for such an intimidating enemy, they were blown away too fast by most builds- the previous nerf hit them a bit too hard)
• Scorpions no longer spawn on the Volcanic biome as there were some islands that felt unfair for them to be on
• Scorpions can no longer be shielded
• Fire Pumpkins now have a longer time between attacks, making it less likely that the entire floor gets covered with fire
• Grub health reduced by 25%
• Removed smaller Desert islands from the elite island pool as these could create unfair fights in cramped spaces
• Vitality and Second Wind now show if their damage bonus is active or not in the inventory UI
• Hitmarker audio lowered further as it was still quite grating when a lot was going on

  Buffs

• Explosive Armor radius doubled
• Flammable Armor radius doubled but fire stacks reduced from 75 to 25 (since the previous patch allowed it to damage the armor owner, it became a bit too strong)
• Fire Shot fire stacks increased from 25 to 30
• Dual Shotguns damage increased from 5 to 6
• Auto Shotgun damage increased from 3 to 4
• Rocket Launcher damage increased from 30 to 35
• Burst Pistol number of shots per burst increased from 4 to 5 and clip size increased from 24 to 30
• Auto Rifle fire rate increased to be more balanced with the other starting weapons

  Nerfs

• Starting health reduced from 400 to 300 (the mega buff to starting health ended up removing the danger of the first biome, making the early game feel a bit free and making building into health less important)
• Similarly, hearts had gotten buffed too much which often made choosing health perks feel like a waste. New values:
  1. Bronze Heart: From 150 max health down to 125 max health
  2. Silver Heart: From 400 max health down to 250 max health
  3. Gold Heart: From 1000 max health down to 650 max health
• Due to the way that the Ring Of Precision was calculated, it actually added more critical hit damage than intended so has been reduced from +250% to +150% critical hit damage
• Ring Of Defense damage reduction reduced from 50% to 40%
• Coral Amulet extra chest pickups reduced from 3 to 2
• Tony’s Amulet extra shop options reduced from 6 to 5
• Grappling Hook damage reduced by 50% as it was dealing double the damage of the Grenade ability while also providing big movement gains- this melted through elites in the early game and wasn’t intended to be so strong for single target damage

  Bug Fixes

• Fixed annoying bug that caused Limpets to become invulnerable whenever frozen, leading to dragged out fights in certain cases
• Fixed Giant Ant homing attack that could go invisible but still deal damage
• Fixed Bouncing Shot incorrectly calculating damage that could lead to millions of damage out of nowhere
• Fixed bug that occasionally prevented the Burst Pistol from firing when using Autoloader
• Fixed non hosting players not seeing Nest health bars updating correctly
• Fixed Glass Totems being destroyed by Aura perks or Powerslide
• Fixed Ring Of Rocket Jumping not working with the Cluster Launcher
• Fixed issue that could prevent the game launching with Steam correctly which would break multiplayer invites
• Fixed various cases where UI text was getting cut off
• Removed broken Demolition nest UI counter
• Fixed several rare crashes
• Fixed longstanding bug that caused totems that dispensed loot or secret chests in shops to have a far greater luck value than intended, leading them to constantly spawn Epic and Legendary loot which could create broken power spikes. Also fixed Driller and Rare Treasure loot drops being influenced by Streamer Loot which only should affect chest loot