Next Update Preview - PTB May

We are ready to start the next PTB for the following update!

A few weeks ago, we released the Voice of the People update and a following update to start solving the district cost issues. Now we will be able to try all the changes for these.

HIGHLIGHTS

⚔ Combat Retaliation

Let’s start with the basics: What does it mean? When a player attacks an enemy unit for the first time, the enemy performs a counter‑attack that deals 70% of its base damage.

We think it will improve, even more, the combat. Here are the main goals behind the change

1. The first goal is to create attrition in fights and limit the alpha strike potential

2. Second goal => 1 more thing to consider in battle while taking decisions & creates an oportunity of content & units personality (fuck those pesky ochlings)

Even if this could generate a quick reaction (good or bad), please try the change and let us know what you think. Perhaps there are areas we can tweak to improve it.

Due to this change we have tweaked all units in-game, from an overall increase on HP to adding interesting new effects on certain units (the game designers had a good time including dedicated passives for certain units).

Lastly, we have changed some other areas, related to combat/units, so please take a look at the full changelog.

Currently missing's on the PTB

There are two elements that are not YET in the game, but that will arrive on the update

• Better UI feedback > to let player now which units can/cannot retaliate

• Include retaliation in the math's for the Instant Resolutions

• [Solved next week] The retaliation damage preview shows too much damage; you actually only take about 70% of their damage

• [Solved next week] Broken Focus is still applied in the forest

📊 District Scale Cost

We have been following the subject since the moment the community started talking about the topic. We have been “cooking” internally on the solutions to the topic, and here we are.

A few weeks ago, we did an initial patch to solve the issue of what we are calling “Basic Districts” > Farm, Work and Communal Habitation.

While the patch got a very nice reaction from your side, it proves that we were heading into the good direction and we algo noticed some funny outcomes

There are several changes around this issue

Basic / Elite district

This is not “purely” now, but now it is more evident the difference between the 2 type of districts.

“District costs have been reworked to remove the exponential scaling that made late-game city building feel like a wall. Basic districts (Farms, Works, Communal Habitation) are now cheaper and grow more slowly in cost as your city expands. Elite districts (Science, Influence, Dust, Military) remain meaningful investments with linear (but not explosive) cost increases.”

Even, if we already tweaked the basic district, it is worth to share in case any player missed the information. Here an example of the formula (but you will find all of them in the bottom)

As we removed the exponential factor, even if it count the other district, it will have a much lower impact (+10 industry per district). Lastly, something I saw many of you asking, bridges will count in this +10 industry but they have their own scale cost separated.

Foundation growth

As a part of the update, the team also tweaked how the game calculate the foundation cost. We also removed the exponential factor. Lastly, we reduced the max cost from 1000 to 500 influence.

District Effects & Synergies

We enhance all districts to have “a puzzle system“ that will generate additional synergies between them. An example: Merchant house will produce additional Dust if closer to Work, but the Farms will generate less food if adjacent to Works.

Steam post image

Population Vocations

In order to control a bit more how much influence and dust a player can generate we decided to do 2 big changes in vocations:

• Scribes now focus purely on Science (no more Influence)

• Citizens and Artisans give slightly less Dust, bringing them in line with the other changes

This change, also, will make more interesting some of the minor faction populations!

💂‍♂️ Militia Panel

As we updated how the Militia works (territory-based with their fortification level) we wanted to improve how the militia was displayed.

Before

The only way was to mouse over to the fortification icon in your city

Now ✨

You have a dedicated window directly on your city panel. It make it way easier to distinguish all the units that form the militia from the main city + ministries attached.

🧠 Remember that you can improve the militia units by investing on additional fortification, and also increasing their veterancy with certain technologies.

🔊 What feedback are we looking for ?!

• 💥 Combat retaliation feelings

  • What are your thoughts about the new feature?

  • Share specific examples on areas we should consider to tweak. Perhaps you will find that certain units might be quite stronger than others

  • Do you feel it makes the combat more tactical or just “tedious”?

• 📊 Districts Costs and Synergies

  • How does the new scale cost feels? Do you think they scale too much?

  • What do you think about the new synergies of districts

If you have other things or topics, do not hesitate to share them with us as we will be reading them 💖

📜 READ HERE THE FULL CHANGELOG

How to access the PTB via Steam

1. Go to your Steam Library.

2. Look for “Endless Legend 2”

3. Right-click on your Library entry and go to Properties.

4. Select Betas > and select “public-test-branch“

It's available after a Steam reboot! / It might take some mins to appears

Have a nice day ^-^