@Peter Thanks, but Jade description mentions s2 post-201 mechanic now. Also why damage text is not colored - in s2 towers info looks nice! Also "opal" tower type might be confusing, since its same as aqua (minor suggestion here: assuming colored damage text, show type olny as mouse-over text) Other possible confusion for new players: mixing armor value and armor type - it should be more obvious that they are 2 independed multipiers. Why "Legendary" difficulty means removing Easy, the 6th button is unacceptable? Things to disscus: -Malachite interval nerf (i'm not saying it must be exacly same as in Flash version) -Initial amount of lives -Early game anti-frustration mechanics (such as start gem preference)

@WGW Yes that's why I have been avoiding making any changes to Classic. I did just fix the Armor types and Damage as per @216's request. One other change I was considering is adding "Legendary" difficulty and removing Easy.

@216 and @Peter, I think we should be wary of modifying classic game mode mechanics piecemeal, quite seriously. But that's just my two cents. . . I don't want the old Flash version back unless it's as a separate mode (which would be great, but I'm really not asking for that!) I don't want the old opal buff bug back, e.g.! :)

@G, if you see this. . . I'm nearing the end of the best run I've had with v1.0.3, which I believe (maybe I'm wrong) is when Peter fixed the late game enemy movement glitch. That glitch is what made it basically impossible, in past versions, to leak ground enemies in very late levels regardless of how much you have to shorten the maze to squeeze in more blocks. But now, with the exponentially rising cost of buying lives, and consistently leaking ground enemies once I start shortening the maze (after level 1,000 or so I have no choice--no room left anywhere else!), gold is a real problem. By my calculations, I can only afford to buy enough lives to compensate for just under 2 leaks average per ground level, and I know I will be leaking more than that by the end. (Currently at level 1069.) So I'm dying of curiosity--how did you manage to get to level 1244 in v1.0.3??? I'm extremely impressed, and even more baffled. Maybe it has to do with having a different maze layout? You must be heavily building only paraibas to get that far, but otherwise, I don't know quite how you managed this. But since your run ended with 187 million+ gold, clearly your issue was not leaks, but running out of space! Screenshot, fwiw (the missing header row with stats like level, gold, etc, is a weird glitch that happened this run, no idea why): https://imgur.com/a/BbXZIto

@bonannoslamming yes it's game over when you let a boss through

How many lives is the level 100 boss worth? I swear in classic it is only 10 lives, but i had 30 and died when the minions burst and made it to the end of my maze. Are bosses just "game over" if you can't kill them?

Yes. Wasn't it intended since begining, but forgotten?

@216 To be 100% clear, the S2 armor weakness is what you want for Classic now?

@Peter, I remember quite well Flash mechanics. I didn't refer to amethyst weakness after lvl 40 , but to pink damage color, which is the only one that respect weakness (in s2,s3 it works correctly for all colors) And, no, we didn't ask to make everything exacly like in Flash version, lives mechanics obviously needed change

@216 To answer your question, I just checked because I couldn't remember: Past level 40, Flash Insane and current Classic Survival both use Pink armor on every wave, including flying waves.

@216 @wgw I still have the source code of the Flash version, I can compare the exact mechanics if you want. Do you want it exactly like the Flash version?

bruuuh ended w/ 360k score because i forgot i could buy more lives on a air wave. first ancient at lvl 7, and great opal at 42 thats crazy. (copied someone else's map, I forgot who, lmk if its ur design)

@Peter Topic of your last comment is not classic (and its visible not to everyone). Please add weakness to Classic first - I don't believe it was intentional to make it *works* olny on pink dmg Also extreme (easier diffs too) runs with no leaks(10300 score) should receive a small time based bonus. Adding weakness modifiers will have little negative effect on speedrun times , but lack of it is like a bug

@216 Yes, I see your point, totally agree on your suggestion. I was really talking about the cliff in difficulty killing flyers at 44; I didn't know what the cause of the cliff was (what stats), just that there's a cliff. So I thought of HP first. But I can definitely see how a jump in speed could cause the difficulty spike, even if HP increase is reasonable. On a side note. . . I've figured out a way to archive all the comments and all the high scores for GTD going back to 2007. Still working on it, and (data comes from Wayback Machine), I'll say more later-- already have all the data!

The problem with lvl 44 is not jump in hp, which is ok. But combined with huge speed jump it makes lvl 44 flyers hard to kill. Before lvl 41 enemies use manually chosen stats, after they have same speed for rest of the game - flyers are as fast as grounds, resulting minimum speed 1.56x higher than on lvl 40 ofc, lvl 44+ flyers are main difficuly in the game, so they can't be nerfed too much. However i agree that little nerfing them and adding difficuly after lvl 100 is good idea So, my suggestion is: -keep current hp -reduce (minimum) speed on lvl 44 by ~20%, then on lvls 48,52,56, .. by less and less untill around 80-90 -reduce the initial lives amount to about 2-3, on all difficulties (explained reasons some time ago) For classic and future seasons (starting form s3) @PastaJawn after some balancing S2 is generally very nice, many possibilites even in early lvls

I used to play a lot, and took a few years off. Glad to see all the work this year, Peter. The game is better than ever! The save function is great.

Short answer for now, @216, just to clarify, I didn't mean "increase the flyer HPs". The opposite. When I wrote "A change to the increase in hit points of flyers", I wasn't clear enough. The change I meant would be to REDUCE the increase in hit points of flyers so that they don't jump in difficulty to kill so abruptly at level 40/44. That would make the GO a lot less critical, since you absolutely don't need a GO to reliably kill all ground enemies. If the flyer HP increase wasn't so steep, you could reliably kill more flyers through higher levels without a GO. I think. I don't really know the formulas/stats like you do, really at all. I go mostly by observing the game/kill patterns/gem kill counts, etc. than knowing the underlying math. And there's a sure a steep cliff in air enemies becoming a huge problem by level 48 (without a GO). :)

1. I should be more clear, sorry. By "early" game i meant actualy first 100 or 150 lvls(rather mid game). When imagining PD earning lives, the "best" strat seems to be making low-dmg stun zones near them and killing enemies as slow as possible. Similary can be done with jades now, but to buy 2x more lifes needs not x2, but ~8x gold. So balacing such mechanic would require additionaly limits... but even 1 life per lvl per tower is too much. Possible to find some unclear formulas for chance to get 1 life depending of hits, but i don't like this idea. 2.Removing lives and direct gold cost on leak - hmm, maybe just auto-buy (if 1 life) on leaks? So you still can buy lives if want to (leaks count, preventing form spending gold) 3. Stun immune wawes - i've never liked air stun immune lvls. Once i managed to kill 3 in lvl 100. But i deal with ground stun immine wawes, untill 450 or 550. The reason is difference of amount of EGs that we use.(naturally playing to end of space requires limiting them) 4. color/weakness You shocked me a bit by ignoring that mechanic - the x1.75 on pink dmg is not that You want to ignore. That's why some middle EGs are needed to effective kill flyers. Maybe that, with unstable stun zones explain 7 leaks without GO The damage type is same as Perfect gem or..also projectile color. Flash version/s2 has colored damage text also, so no doubt what type of dmg gem is. 5. life/repick balance Such values occurs olny in very late game. Even if life cost 1 milion gold, the 50k for repick is not nothing - compare value of repick and life in terms of surviving ( not being limited by space) - at lvl 1000 you can't basicly add anythng usefull . and repicking 20 times (if little unlucky) to get PAq cost You actually 1 life then. Too cheap? Being able to repick a lot is kind of privilege of reaching very late game and i like it. But when we add difficulty around lvl 200 thing will be different... 6. GO balance it wasn't needed to reach lvl 195. Now its also not needed to reach 195 or even ~1200. Early GO was crittically needed to improve time scores on lvl 195 . Now early GO is critticlly need to limit non-paraiba towers to push some more lvl past 1200. In 2020 I managed to beat 196 without GO - but it wasn't fully stable run. Btw, *almost* first no-GO succes was made by lement, not me. However the PC spec were matter - laggy, slower projectilles reduces the chance of succes too much (I did some simulations) GO power always have been insane, it wasnt "needed" cause You played untill target lvl and accepted slower times scores too. If s1 boss 500 (basicly unbeatable) was in classic then we would play to 500 without "need" of GO (in s1 playing without GO cause problems to get few 0-leaks air lvls for boss 250, almost managed to do it) If pushing limits (imagine balanced game),GO its absolutely needed. The olny reasonable change that would make them less crittical is buffing PO - which would have big impact on easier difficulties. Maybe we just need accept it, we can discuss about mechanics that helps to get first GO in survival. (You suggested combining 2 POs, i have few other ideas) You said sometihng about increasing flyers hp - the GO is x1.3 more attack power AND x1.3 stun power (compared to PO). So i don't think its the way to balance it.

Ah, and I forgot to mention the single biggest change since the Flash game-- the no stun levels. If that remains in the game, then you're guaranteed to leak 10 (or at least 8 or 9) lives every 50 levels. There's no strategy around it. And with the way life cost skyrockets, that's a fundamental, core change to the game which requires building enough Jades to survive it. There is no strategy that will prevent you from leaking ALL air enemies (or at least 9) on no stun levels past level 100. And leaking ALL ground troops (except maybe one) on no stun levels past level 350.

@216 I always use the same build. I've been using the same build forever. Even going back to the Flash game, it was essentially the same maze, just emphasized a stunlock region in the lower left out of range of flyers. The only variance from run to run is what gems I get, not the maze layout or my intended gem placement (though I did, as I've mentioned, partially adopt your strategy of creating a horizontal row of EEs. On gem color weakness, it's just not something I ever paid much attention to having played the Flash game forever, which made gem color irrelevant starting with level 40. If this becomes a major game factor, then it has to be made clear somehow what special towers map to what gem color weaknesses. It's not clear now, and never was. I'm guessing tht towers with a perfect gem are counted as the same color as the perfect gem in the recipe, but there are towers that don't use a perfect gem at all, where the recipe doesn't even have one gem at a higher level than the others (basically every tower that doesn't require a perfect). Not sure why you'd say great opal imbalance is unfixable. It wasn't necessary at ALL in the Flash version of the game. It just sped the game up so you'd get to the hard gate at level 196 sooner. Which would boost scores at the same level reached, because of the lower time score. But it was a minor effect. You absolutely did not need a great opal in the old game. A change to the increase in hit points of flyers would do wonders. Level 44 is generally the last level you can count on killing most flyers without exceptionally good RNG, like an early GO. Again, not sure why you'd think that early game balance would be ruined by a tower that earns lives. It depends, first of all, what rate the lives are generated at, which is a tweakable formula. But you shouldn't be leaking any enemies, air or ground, until at least level 40. So earning lives early game really has no effect. It's just one idea. The point I was trying to make (per old discussions) is that the game has to be rethought. There's simply no reason for lives to need to be purchased with gold. Even if you want to preserve gold as affecting both repick ability, and how many enemies you can afford to leak, there's still no reason, really none, why we need a separate stat for lives. Leaked enemies should just reduce gold directly. What's the point of the extra step of having to click a button manually to buy lives for a fixed (increasing) cost when the game end condition can simply be redefined as "running out of gold"? It would change literally nothing except to eliminate the silly process of replenishing lives manually. At least in the Flash version, whether intentional or not, needing to click to buy lives is what made level 196 almost impossible to beat, because one leaked enemy cost your full maximum of 50 lives. But now? Escaped enemies always only cost 1 life. So leaked enemies should simply deduct directly from your gold. Again, changes nothing about gameplay or strategy. But I still say, you can't balance gold for both purposes. When you have 10 million in gold, and repicks (after tons of repicks due to the combine special bug not being exploitable anymore) cost like 25,000, you're simply not constrained in any way by gold cost from repicking almost endlessly. And the gold had to scale up that fast to match the increase in cost of escaped enemies. The scales are just wildly off-- by end game, escaped enemies can cost over 1 million gold, while repicks still cost like 40k to 50k max. At the very least, the scaling of repick costs has to be tweaked so that the scale of increase isn't so wildly divergent from how quickly the cost of lives skyrockets. The current Javascript version is, while superficially very similar, in many ways a completely different game now. Remember how much effort you and other folks into the emerald strat to get past level 195? That's not a thing anymore. Great opals were nice to have but thoroughly unnecessary in the Flash version. I'm sure they helped a lot with the emerald strat, but that strat was always highly RNG dependent already. In the Flash version, I was basically guaranteed that I could make any run work well enough to get to level 196. In the current game? I have maybe one run in 20 that's worth playing past level 100. Lives work different, gold scales differently, it's already not the old game. We're talking about rebalancing *this* game, right? Not making it more like the old Flash game. (I wouldn't mind having the old Flash version of the game back, for the record-- it was a lot less frustrating, and runs only lasted 10 hours or so, even for the few folks like you who got past level 196!)

@WGW I use the "PA" as abbreviation of Perfect Amethyst, not Aqua (PAq i use. Alternative is PQ). You didn't comment about weakness - i think it should be added asap. It looks obviously not intentional being apllied olny for pink damage, more like something "to finish later" then Peter forgot about... It wasn't a prority when we had a crash bug - i didn't insist to add it, then Peter suddenly started S1 - so was too late for changes such adding weakness - Gold for both lives and repick - hard to balance, but actually... current repick/lives balance is not as bad, assuming multive lives leak cost will be added. Tower that generate lives - years ago i also had such idea,for useless Pink Diamonds. But: - it would ruin early game balance - i think its intentional for gold to be used for lives, not olny for repicks - the mechanic its too far from classic flash game; we have seasons now to test such mechanics - i don't actually think it would be as fun If any doubt about how game-breaking is Uber Stone, check Raine's s1 top score, look at time and realize it was even without GO (s1 is basicly classic survival, just boss in lvl 250 and 500) Great Opal is game-changing (always have been), no good way to fix it ( and we can get high lvl without it, anyway ). But drop 7->0 in leaks sounds unlikeky, must be very specific build

@216, Oh I definitely would prefer that classic survival mode actually contain a real challenge, which we both know it doesn't after level 200, latest. And I've said before, I fully agree that it was necessary for Peter to patch the combine special bug, but the result is that playing a long run is now 10 times more tedious than it used to be, requiring more than 200 actual perfect aquamarines. And it adds no challenge at all-- you always have far more gold than you need to repick as often as necessary for the PAs, but it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly tedious. Just by virtue of RNG, sometimes you may have to repick dozens of times to get the next PA. The answer is not restoring the bug, clearly, but the game in its current form is, incredibly, even more tedious than it used to be. Far more. And now it's not a matter of passively waiting for 8 to 10 minutes for late levels to finish. Now, with the 4x speed booster and no more glitched enemy movement in late levels, it's maybe a couple of minutes per level, and then you're right back to having to repick endlessly for PAs. Too little downtime, too much active (but totally tedious, non-strategy-based, repetitive) repicking, often spending more time to get another PA than the downtime waiting for the level to play out after your pick. So the game could really use an overall rebalance, and I think the most fruitful approach is adding new game elements like the ones that have been suggested over the years by various folks, rather than even trying to rebalance the game by just tweaking tower stats. I like your ideas. I've forgotten what most of mine have been. I know one idea, which I still stand by, is to simply eliminate gold to purchase lives, so that it only affects being able to repick, which would mean rebalancing Jades. Having gold affect these two different game stats, lives and repicks, is impossible to balance. I still like the idea of making one of the useless towers a non-attack tower which earns lives back on a low % basis, akin to the jades earning gold. Creates an interesting tradeoff you have to consider between raw attack power and sufficient replenishment of lives. But there have been lots of other ideas over the years. I can't speak to the uberstone, cause I've never gotten one. :) The great opal absolutely should not be as important as it is, that much I'm sure of, though. I've had runs where I was leaking 7 or 8 air enemies every air level, then got a late GO and immediately stopped leaking any air enemies at all. That's far too great an effect for a tower that you can't count on getting. There is definitely going to be a new challenge now in very late game figuring out the optimal way to shorten the maze in light of the gold saved up so that I don't end up bleeding lives on ground levels. I'm still only at level *780* at this point, but I'm going to have to start shortening the maze. I'm almost out of room otherwise.

@216 How about now, is it the crafting bug fixed finally?

New confirmation still bu... EDIT: seems to be fixed Meanwhile did another maze mistake in lvl 351, costing me about 20 lives. Still, if some luck it can reach 400

@WGW: so... You actually prefer harder survival mode (lose before 400) or play to end of space? There are some interesting aspects of end of space play (i.e. proper shortening maze without losing to grounds), but i prefer trying to stop air leak and lose faster. I suggested before to leave current surival mode for those who like it and add NEW, 6th difficulty, which includes: - multiple lives per leak from lvl 201 - extra enemies (but much less than in s2) OR little stun resistant enemies in late lvls Regardless of new difficulty, classic need some changes: - full weakness and colored damage text (like in s2) - some adjustments, such as paraiba/some great gems damage - MINOR jade nerf (if weakness added, difficulty little drops, due to green dmg gets x1.5 on flyers - will compensate jades) -Uber Stone nerf ("nobody will get it", but what if? it should not soloing whole game) Do we aggre with it?

I have decent s2 run going (310 now) , but i rather wait for craft fix, it's too annonying. @LobsteRbosley: This is chance for one gem, not whole slate

I am the newest skeptic on the efficacy of the percentage of slate extra chance. This run alone I have been skunked on nearly 10 extra chance slates that were higher than 95%

@Peter I have a decent if not spectacular run going, probably will get to level 1225 or so if I don't mess it up. I experienced a bug I've never seen before: the header text for the game, which shows level, gold, lives, time and score disappeared! The game is otherwise still playing normally. Screenshot here: https://imgur.com/a/kTHX0s7 Thanks again for making classic mode stable and far faster to play! @216 So many interesting ideas have been brought up over the years for changes to rebalance classic survival mode. I think it'll require a lot of tinkering and folks like us actually playing it out to see what tweaks work as intended. In the meantime, I'm happy to have my digital fidget spinner back. It's way harder to get a good run going now with the combine special bug fixed. I got a great opal somewhere around level 250, so I overbuilt jades disgracefully. I don't know exactly how much gold I have at this point since the header text is invisible, but it's far too much. ;) But last time I had a good run going, I ended up bleeding lives on ground levels so badly after shortening the maze, I really don't know how far this run will get. I think, if things work as they did for my last good run, I'll at least be able to sort of see gold/level/time/score on the high score list after level 500, when Peter built in a "save per level" feature. I'm at around level 429 now.

I've got a good game going, but i'm afraid it's all for nought...every level, the crafting bug seems to get worse.

@Peter The make x slate/combine special buttons in pop-up window works in like 20% cases, so i need to click sometimes 10+ times craft...then it to make something. I fell like it's getting worse with lvl About last few lvl: there is huge RNG factor actually. i leaked 0 (lucky) in 388 then 3(unlucky) in 392, while i had 11 lives and gold for next 4 (so missing 1). Ground wawes are irrelevant, so only 392 and 396 are more unforgiving - possible to pass them by luck

@216 @ttj Amazingly close race for #1 so far, I'm glad the last few levels are struggling... :)

Got answer -closed-

Hmm, while choosing gems i rather don't look at top bar - it should be close enough to "keep" button. There surely is enough space - if move upper buttons and info text a litte. In addition path text could change color to red if drops much (compared to longest in last 2 lvls) Number format: Time is never above 6-digits. But for score and gold idea is not bad. But leave the low numbers natural: 1.234k instead 1234 is nonsense; 100k is good threshold, some ppl may say 10k

@216 How about we put it on the top bar and move the score, gold, time numbers to this format: 1000 = 1.000K 1000000 = 1.000M That way its always 6 or less characters for the numbers?

Thanks for working on UI improvements! But pop-up confirmation for malachite is not needed :) My suggestion is: - craft... button only when both slate and combine special are available - combine special (in same place) - single click maybe - make slate (in same place) - diferent color, double click (as cofimation) Will it be intuitive for everyone? Path length: Could it be displayed in more visible place? (above downgrade maybe ?). White text near surrender button requires to intentionally look here to check, which will not happen when forgetting about gap in maze.

Currently I can only play season 2 by being logged out when I start. When I end or lose the run I then login to attempt to have it recorded but I don't think its working. Somehow when I'm logged in I can press restart but it won't start the 'place gem' function (or show that button).

@Peter Yes, i explained the reason in eariel comment (as one of suggestions) and You responded "those are good suggestions" (final maze stat is interesting, though) Other (minor) problem: the Downgrade button recently changed position. It's even not always in same place - it may lead to missclick and one really happened to me: After placing gems (lvl 100+) i realized if i downgrade 4 of them ( or 3 ?) i can get Ancient Slate, so started downgrading them (too) quickly. Sadly, the last gem (NR) i needed to downgrade had also slate recipe - i did not realize i'm cliking "make slate" on time (despite color), resulting with (useless at that) point range slate. Tried to recover form this mistake by closing game quickly and load save, but was too late Ofc fitting 5 possible buttons in place where was 3, naturally cause UI problems

Yep

@muellesx Oh I see, you want to know your current path length after placing a tower or removing one?

@peter you misunderstand the ask. The point of a path metric is so we have a very clear indicator that we have injured our path during a turn's setup. It has to be a live metric, that updates even as stones are removed and added

@_G_ Path has been added to season 2 under the score.

Path length metric would be amazing. I am fully supportive of this addition to all versions of the game.

I am strongly in favor of an indicator for your path length. Seems like something that could be implemented intra-season

@muellesx had same issue, but pressed enter and it worked

hmm. I have a game that is unfortunately coming to an end at level 350. But I cannot submit this score. The "Submit" button remains greyed out.

Not a video, but... 1. Put Malachite in a decent place (to cover much air path) 2. Vivid Malachite literally solo first 8 lvls, try to get 70+ kills (of first 80) on it 3. Get one Damage and one Range Slates asap. dont take more. let them farm kills 4. At lvl 9 , checkpoints should be separated, forcing ground enemies to pass 7 times near Malachite. Then add maze around it. Ground units should be not problem. 5. Malachite needs little help in lvl 12, 16 to deal with flyers. If build fells not strong enough for lvl 20, delay last chances upgrade and upgrade Malachite. Don't spend gold on anything else. 6. Once max upgraded chances and Malachite you may use gold on extra chances (mostly on Perfect Amethyst or Opal) and repicks to help with build first few EGs. Try to make a few Great Gems: GA, (at least one if well placed) GO, and GAq maybe. Other importnat gems: EEs, ancient slate(s), jades (for gold), one Red Crystal , one (maybe 2) wraith slate (speed buff), one BO, SYS (little buff +aoe slow). Optional gems: Uranium, BS, GT, GR - very strong early, not essential later 7. at lvl 40 combine Viper Slate (possible before in some cases) 8. after 40 , if you already have GA, GO and GAq and other important gems, keep builing EEs, EGs, Ancient Slates, maybe jades (especially one hit ones) and some Great gems (mostly more GAs - helps destroying flyers). Make 1 Paraiba before 100. 9. for lvl 100 boss is recomended about 10 EGs, some EEs, Paraiba and good maze. Uranium slow effect helps. Some tips: -Use downgrade a lot. Slates, 1-hit recipes, Great gems ( if 1 Perfect and 2 Flawless to combine 3 Flawless) for example -Don't use too much new, advanced gems. IF get 1-hit Silvers in early lvl then make SKs later. Miasma, if many kills is strong gem, but hard to build(also big sacrifice of EE+GE), don't use extra chances for emerald before GO constructed -avoid Star Ruby and Elder Slate components (despite spell slate being strong early- waste of kills), (Pink) Diamons are for lvl 100+

Hey pros - does not one of you want to make a yt video on how to get to lvl 100+ on seasons? If there is already one, I haven't found it.

@tony_nguyen Sorry about that... I hit the wrong button... One moment if you were affected, I am correcting it right now.

Hi @Peter, it looks like the web version has roll back to previous version.

@tony_nguyen No need to apology. Thanks for playing! @216 @tony_nguyen @TTJ Btw... I have a surprise. Check your profiles later today to unlock something very experimental. We will need more testers as well so anyone interested in testing an experimental mode of Gem TD, please post here and I'll add you.

@Peter Thanks for the detailed explanation. I completely understand your point about keeping the playing field fair for everyone now. I also want to apologize for my reaction—I should have been more understanding of the adjustments and effort you’re putting into balancing the game.

@tony_nguyen Sorry that was a bug. Ultimately to be eligible for the Season 2 badges, we want it to be a fair playing field and the last 0.44 change was significant enough that @216 should have a more difficult time getting to level 400. Again my apologies season 2 hasn't been handled properly, I should have opened it as "Alpha Testing" to a small group then we could have opened officially once testing was complete.

I also saw two options due to my play in 1.0.43 (yesterday). What will happen if I click on start a new run? I will lost all my previous progress?

Hi Peter, just to clarify, does this mean every run moving forward will count toward the leaderboard? I also agree that we should shorten the time to close Season 2. After so many fixes and adjustments, continuously resetting the leaderboard is becoming demotivating for active participants.

@216 @muellesx You convinced me, I have reset the board after the fix.

I think a scoreboard reset is necessary. The strategy I used to reach 364 will absolutely not work now.

Well, if that bug had major impact on my score (possible to simulate i guess), then i think its needs to be disqualificated. I was leaking mostly 0, sometimes 1 in last ~10 flying wawes. Only 1 month for s2? s3 rather won't be ready for october. Also, many players are not active now, why not give them more time.

@216 Fixed, I won't reset the scores for Season 2.

I afraid there is a bug with repetable grounding same flyers - noticed new affect apllied before even old ended. lvl 400 on first official run... Surrendered before boss 400 to show map Another bug with button/text visible here

I understand no gameplay changes, but why no cosmetic/QoL? I was intentionally focused only on gameplay feedback before. Now the only way to see (color) damage table is old GTD wiki (and code inspection)

@muellesx Yes no more changes for Season 2. @216 Yes those are good suggestions, I'll incorporate them into Season 3.

Now that the season has started, I'd say we need to limit changes to either QoL or diagnostic/display

@Peter i realized those things before. But its not fully explaination of the extra chances algorithm - how normal rolls works while its active - what is the chance of not olny for Perfect, but also Flawless / Normal / flawed of target type? (depends of pity ofc) - is the chance same for every of 5 gems? I realized also, when repicking after getting targetted perfect ( on pity 0) and using extra chances again, then Perfect gem appear on same gem again. I prefer to know chance per gem than per 5 gems, i guess at p0 is ~6%. But how normal roll increase it? its x% for normal roll and y% for target flawed-perfect? - - - - - - - - Some QoL suggestions: - display damage table somewhere, maybe (s2 for now) instructions - display the maze length (during build phase at least); the amount of mistakes by leaving/forgetting about gap in maze (not olny in s2) that i made is my life is incredible. Maybe if length number can change color on huge changes... - allow to scroll towers long descryptions - make current gold more visible on extra chances menu; maybe display gold cost red if can't afford

@MrHappyGem I sent a password reset email to you. You should be able to change your password after clicking the link in the email.

Hi There, I can't remember my password and can't see how to reset it thanks for your help Rob

Extra Chance has some hidden carryover: - A miss builds pity for later attempts, even if you change targets. - A success reduces pity rather than always clearing it. - Unused pity slowly decreases each round. - For Perfect gems, the displayed percentage is the chance of getting at least one targeted Perfect. - For Slates, the percentage only means that at least one gem is influenced—not that the full slate recipe is guaranteed. Downgrading can also let you create the slate while the system still records a miss. I agree it is confusing, but I’ll leave Season 2 unchanged and simplify it for Season 3.

I'm also curious how exacly extra chances works. What will happen to season 1 now (and generally to seasons after end) ? - - - - - - - Some final testing feedback: generally it's nice, fell balanced and challenging... for now. But i predict when we optimize our strategies, lvl 400 scores will start to appear on the leaderboard. If someone would reach 351 with 50 lives left then leak average 2 flyers = lvl 400 reached with 2 lives left. It fells doable (not easy, though) - already passed 350, while still adapting to new towers. Because competition is more fun about reaching highest lvl than getting few more points on lvl 400, I think bringing back 3-lives leaks at some point (maybe 301, maybe later?) is good idea. Furthermore, wawes near the end (starting around 380) can be even harder - 4,5,6,... lives per leak, maybe little more speed, maybe something else ? Of course that is just a suggestion, i prefer harder tier 4 with nearly impossible to reach max lvl

I'm not sure that I really understand the extra chance mechanic. What I think is happening is you are given a pity boost if you miss and that boost is residual. If I'm always looking for the same gem, then that's great (literally), but I'm looking for a range of targets, it gets in the way. I love the idea of the extra chance system. It gives you levers to pull to guide the RNG toward your preferred strategy. I just wish the invisible residual factors were gone and that the algorithm was opaque. Slate-focused extra chances are pretty broken too. You can continually "miss" the target slate while actually acquiring them through downgrades. The problem with that is you'll eventually crank it up to 100% - which isn't a good thing - it starts throwing a bunch of perfect gems at you and you have to lay off for a while so that the chances are reasonable again. Don't take this as "Extra chance is broken, replace it". I like it. Just needs a few tweaks.

What will happen to in-progress games when the scoreboard resets?

S2 fells quite nice now, thanks. I was afraid that flamestrikes got buffed too much, but my observations didn't confirm it so far. However, the tier 3 difficuly dropped slightly - 1 more enemy would get it back. If 151-199 part (which is too easy) had 17 enemies, then it would be smooth increase 2 per 50 lvls: 15/17/19/21/23/25 Suprisingly, no leaks in lvl 250 Tier 4 - no longer fells impossible; 3-lives leaks can be considered to be back (starting from any point in tier 4) , depending of desired difficulty . I afraid reaching 400 won't be hard enough. I'm still far from optimal strategies. Grounding abilities makes stun towers viable in places they wasn't before, including bottom left corner. It's hard to predict now if tier 4 is hard enough or not.

@216: More adjustments: Emerald gains 15% chance for 4× critical damage. * Miasma clouds and Flame Strikes inherit nearby damage auras. * Tier 3 waves progress from 18 to 20 enemies. * Tier 4 waves progress from 23 to 25 enemies.

Thanks for some fixes, but Miasma need something serious, not minor change vs boss - I suggested before to give it EE's crit (15% for x4), which means x1.45 average dmg. Cloud effect is also weak. There must be a reason of sacrificing EE and GE. Flamestrikes - this mechanic is serious olny on stunned targets. The wider range give hope of affecting sometimes 2 close stunned flyers, but the general problem was not benefing form new dmg buffs (viper) - its dmg stays, while all direct dmg and enemy hp goes up. Tier 4 needs more testing, but is possible to split it in 2 parts? Maybe 301-350 only 22 or 23 enemies, then 351-399 full 25 (might be reduced, need tests) Similar change can be considered for tier 3, as some players complained on huge jump The problem with testing tier 4 is time - was over 50000 ticks at lvl 300

@216 Sorry I didn't understand your recommendation for lives but now I believe I fixed it as you suggested: Protected progressed saves from silent replacement. Tiered leak costs: 1 / 2 / 2. Tier-four flyers spawn every 400 ms. Stagger recovery replaces permanent stun immunity. Stronger Jade income and per-tier Repick pricing. Viper, Ancient Slate, ABS, Miasma, Diamond Trapper, and Colossus adjustments.

Save issue - closing game during wawe causing save to be lost. No more 2-lives leaks... so one of main s2 concepts is abandoned? Tier 3 keeps difficulty on decent level. However running out of lives takes quite long now - the pre-200 gold allows to buy only about 150 lives - but if no leaks before 200, then is possible to leak 5 every air lvl and all grounds in 250 - still lvl 300 will be reached. In practice i lost 20-30 lives before 200, then 5-6 air leaks at early tier 3, then average 3-4 . 15 leaks in 250. Was going to lose around 320 (if no save issue). tier 4 - leaking 7-8 flyers here. I don't think is possible to stop all. But if reduced tier 3 leaks to minimum, i believe there will be enough lives to reach 400. It fells hard to do, though. So, game is *somehow* balanced, but not in way i imagined it - more leaks allowed, but unstoppable tier 4 cause its needed to save as many as possible lives for it. I liked 2 lives cost leaks, i meant to remove price multiplier only, sorry if it was a missunderstanding (but tier 4 now is too hard for multi lives cost, tbh) Other possible missunderstanding - i meant stun immune wawes are unbalanced , not there was too many of them. Maybe reduce minimum speed of them a little? Unless they are intended just to lose some lives. >>Economy still based on pre-200 gold. Jades do a little after now, but its still not enough (income per wawe drops from 20k-30k to 3-4k). Also repicks fells just too expensive (after 200) >>other random feedback 1. Viper Slate - could be buffed little more, but let say its acceptable now - with 60 kills at lvl 40 it can grow to 100 kills before lvl 200. Why viper+BO+SYS total buff is capped at 100% , while 50+40+5 is 95 ? (in s3 it's different story). Btw, viper aura after soft cap grows really slowly. 2. Ancient Slate - kills after 100 fells wasted. Also that stun effect needs more explaination. 3. ABS - flamestrikes might need little buff in s2 4. Boss 300 - maybe need little more control resistance. Diamond damage no longer so important, GAs helps much. Why Diamond Trapper crit got nerfed (i know it was 20% for x5)? 5. Will Miasma get some buff?

@216 Check the latest update, the revert from season 3 caused some of the fixes to be lost.

@ Peter Bug: got another Uber Stone... and.. its fully pre-nerf version 1. Please apply Uber nerf also to classic - its as strong as it may be not fun (idk if anyone ever got it in classic) 2. Maybe its just flaw of pseudo-random number generators, but i fell the RNG is little favorizing amethyst 3. Is possible to determine from seed/verify that rolls somehow? I still don't believe that Extra Chances fully stops after 2 hits.

Speaking of lives, there is 1 more question that i always wanted to discuss (related to classic, but affects seasons as well) >> the starting amount of lives Back in flash version we had 9. However leaking a early game flyer - lvl 16 was costing (already) 5 lives , making them effective as 2 lives. In JS version we start with 10 lives. In addition buying first ~7 lives is really cheap, allowing some early game mistakes (still worth to reset after early leaks, but many players continue with inefficient build, leading to loss in ~50) I seriously think the starting lives should be reduced to maybe 3 (?), as it should be more obvious that we are not supposed to leak before 44. It will also affect later game difficulty, by little. @Peter increasing live cost at 201 do not prevent it, jades change do it. In fact it's now needed to accumulate gold (and 50 lives) before 200 to use any repicks after. Life cost is escalating so quickly that with extra multpier or without it is matter of 20-30 lives (which is very few air lvls with few lekas each)

@216 I was trying to prevent players from accumulating so much gold that it was no longer relevant.

@Peter I think s2 will be ready on early Septebmer, but not sure if on 1st Enemies difficulty in tier 3 looks nice - avoid major changes. But no idea about tier 4 yet. However i don't like the economy. Completing lvl 201 awards only 409 gold + 25x20 + maximum of 105x20 form infinite jades. so ~3k max, in practice about 2k per lvl. Becasue cost of most actions is multipited by 3 , 2k is nothing - at this point repicks cost ussually 5-20k (life cost can be way more) , we have to rely on gold earned before lvl 200 (which is about 1 million if reasonable amount of jades). Kill-only bonus gold should be WAY higher to make it serious mechanic Please tell why multipling life cost by leak cost is active again - i explained why i hate that, i thought we all agree with it.

@216 i am aiming to official start Season 2 September 1st, do you think we are in a good spot now?

@Peter Did you noticed my edit about s3 tag? Mixing s2 and s3 comments is not a good idea, waiting with my s3 feedback now

@216 Should be fixed now

Bug found: Killing group of enemies by Wraith mark explosions do not reward proper amount of gold. Similar once happened (likely) by early BS (got before 15) aoe

Thanks for edit option! But update with slate confirmations didn't go well.. (maybe its no needed at all or only to viper slate). Start preference do nothing. Suggestion for comments: separate s3 and s2 comments from general/classic somehow; if not different place for them, then maybe an option to tag comment as "S2" / "S3" (+different colors) and optonally filter out/show only chosen tag(s)? Not sure which option is better, but if ppl will commenting s2 and s3 at same time, it may be too chaotic, especially for those who want classic disscussion ----------------- EDIT: Tags looks nice, but specyfic Season 3 tag will be really needed for alpha test discussion. S3 alpha comments should be visible olny to players that opt-in s3 alpha test (and dev)

@216 alright 1.0.36 released for season 2, give it a try

i meant tier 3* is unbalanced (shame no edit option)

Haha, i didn't mean to start s3 now... but restoring .33 makes sense and those new mechanics can be placed in s3, as lack of extra chances is huge difference. I would say s2 is still beta - tier 3 and stun immune wawe are completly unbalanced in .33 assuming .35 become s3 i would say its alpha - its really not ready Season 2 was sheduled to start in september? i guess no need to rush with s3, balance s2 and some classic changes are more important

@216 Yes you are right. Let’s do this. I’ll restore .33 as season 2 because it is very difficult and then .35 an be the beta test for season 3?

Actually noticed the new version and already found game breaking bug - finished lvl 15 and... lvl 23 !? The .35 changes are so huge as I fell its season 3. While it is not even s2 v1.1 :) Tempering looks very interesting, but its so far from classic game. I guess it will take some time to balance all of it.

@216 I just released .35 for season 2 and it has some major changes, I didn’t like how extra chances work so I removed it and replaced it with gem contracts and the boss spells are now acquired by purchasing them as well as multitude of other buffs. I decided to include the concept of Gem Tempering which are gold purchased rank upgrades to the towers, the idea being it is up to you as the player to determine which towers to upgrade and which buffs to purchase.

2 million hp at 201, 2.5 million at 222 (about twice as before) ... Could You keep the exponential hp growth away from GTD, please? (maybe just slow linear increase to x1.5 multiplier?) In fact difficuly in tier 2 was interesting, was leaking few flyers (3-4 just after 100 then 1-2 near 200) and surely there were ways to optimize it little more. Only problem was time of dealing with wawes near 200. tier 3 - ocassional ground leaks (!). But could be better propared. However that 2-3 leaked dwarves weren't reason of lose - of course additional 5 flyers resulted with extra 5 leaks; 6-7 instead 1-2, which drained me fast from 50 lives and 1 million gold stored. Sadly lost just before stun immune wawe, but i predict 20-30 lives lost - no way to deal with so much hp without stuns. I liked wawes 250, 350 before - challenging but ussually i didnt leak after some preparation. Undocumented nerf - jades gold: level/2 + 5 -> level/4 + 5 Anyway, i generated over 1 million gold by lvl 200 due to more hp (takes longer = more hits), Sadly, from 201 jades production drops thousands times. And we need a lot gold at tier 3 - single repick is ussually around 10k, life often even more >> Other important feedback: - Elder slate -7 armor debuff replacing EG's -8 one - Viper slate - absurd low dmg, it literally need x2 (maybe even x4) buff. The point is not to make it a good damage tower, but it allow it to gain any kills. Now the olny reasonable strategy is hunt for early range/ damage slate and wait with making stronger towers, then combining them at lvl 40. If less than ~80 kills - rather reset. Once missclicked and combined then too early (ofc another reset) -Could starting gem preference be saved to account? -Its written that boss 300 removes wraith marks on shifts. Do they do anything but explosion on DEATH? if no, then removing them is nonsense and writting about it is only confusing

@216 Yes I increased the difficulty a fair bit as I have a proper simulator now, so please try to reach the highest level and then I'll be able to dial down the difficult.

Looking at those s2 changes... a "little" overreacion :) At least making game easier do not require reset. That 15% for x4 crit wasnt inteded for Miasma? The crit of Trapper was balanced (anyway diamonds do nothing untill boss 300 phase 2) Also why lives cost x2 x3 is back? the problem wasnt too cheap lives, but no leaks (almost) at all. leakig 1-2 flyer at tier 4 was already deadly. We don't want to be punished for forgetting maxing lives before 200. Hp/armor buff.. maybe needed, but there is little problem - game fells too slow already without. But maybe no, because we will lose faster :) Speed buffs do better at diffuculy increase.

@Peter The aura bug fix definitelly should be applied to classic. The damage table and Uber nerf likely too. Great gems rebalance needs more discussion (the new mechanics should not be in classic IMO). The thing i really wish it was in classic is the 6th difficulty - like Survival but with 2 and 3 lives cost at 201/301 and extra enemies (but not by 5 at once, 1 every 50-60 lvls starting somewhere at 110 -180)

@ttj @wgw I am planning to bring some of the fixes to classic that we have solved in season 2. I just don’t want to mess up classic again.

@Peter I appreciate your concern, but I don't mind at all. @WGW Thanks! It was fun chasing your high scores in classic. I don't miss all the times my laptop crashed past level 1200. The current version is much better.

@216 @ttj I'm working on improving the game simulator I have to ensure that we have a smoother process of making balance changes as we are getting to the point in season 2 that small changes as I did drastically change how easy the season is or not. Unfortunately we will definitely need a reset again.

@Parson I meant 400 LONG runs, ~100 000 extra chances uses. Not possible to chase basicly. Also look at poll (scroll 40 comments below) - you can vote for removing, but read option 3 before. Uranium - not strong, but no longer waste, helps keeping enemies at minimum speed(and slow bosses now). However the range od slow aura is still 64 for both version. it likely should ignore armor also. Malachite - it's strong starting gem. No worth building another, but the first one can get stronger than you can think. Likely the (Mighty) Malachite should be even little nerfed - for those who don't know it got bufed in 2021: cooldown 500/500/550 -> 350/350/350. One more thing: it attack "all" targets, which actually means 10 Star ruby : yes, its trash

and another question. Diamond trapper has brought back one of the towers that was useless. I believe there other three - uranium, star, malachite, that are a waste of turn and space. Is there a plan to boost them? Or I am losing something about these towers?