Thronefall Releases First Post Launch Update With Heaps of Balance Changes

The easy-to-learn tower defence game, Thronefall, has released its first post-launch update adding a tremendous number of quality-of-life fixes.

Thronefall, by Grizzly Games, simplistic tower defence game that involves you building your kingdom, earning money and defending it from enemies. It has become a publication favourite at Game Crater, and the first post-launch update serves to fix balance issues before they introduce a new level in the next update. You can check out all the Thronefall changes below:

Game Balance

As you can see we do not want to be shy about making necessary balance adjustments in this early phase of early access. We greatly value all the feedback you’ve provided us with and tried to reflect it as best as we could in the following changes.

Your Units

• Your units will only start chasing after enemies once they arrive at the position you sent them to. That means your units will obey your orders much more strictly and not get distracted on the way when you send them somewhere.
• Your melee units have a small agro range in hold position mode now so they will no longer watch their comrades being slaughtered right next to them in hold position.
• Units on hold position lose their hold position state when they die and respawn. This is to prevent some exploits and unwanted behaviors.

Hunters

• Prioritize attacking monsters when different enemy types are in range.
• Arrow range increased by +40% when attacking monsters.
• Hunters, while strong in certain situations, were not the most exciting unit to build. This should help you make much better use of their strengths.

Enemy Units

Elite Crossbowmen

• Instead of attacking immediately when you enter their range, they will foreshadow their attack with a red line giving you some time to react.
• Some of you complained that the elite crossbows were too strong and frustrating to play against. While the difficulty is not something we want to change (it has to get more difficult somehow), we agree that they need more counter-play so they are more fun to play against, which should be the case now.
• Attack speed increased by 20%. Elite crossbows lost a lot of dps (damage per second) to the change above. This adjustment brings their dps roughly back to the old level. That being said, if you micro well, they will barely deal any damage to you and your troops now.

Extra note: Towers are generally a good counter to elite crossbows as well.

Weapons

Long Bow

• Renamed to “Bow & Dagger”
  • Better reflects the character of this weapon as it is both ranged as well as melee.
• The stab automatically prioritizes lower health units and stab range increased by 20%

This is the first weapon you play with so the main purpose of this weapon is to be beginner friendly, not powerful beyond belief. That being said, we want to allow for some more expression of skill and reward for making good use of the stab mechanic. With these changes, skilled players should be able to get quite a bit more out of this weapon making it a more viable pick for them.

Spear

• Damage reduced by -5%.
• Damage against fast enemies increased by +5% (so unchanged).

The spear was a bit too strong as an all round weapon. Enemies without the “fast” tag will take one or two more hits to kill now.

Sword

• Auto attack damage increased by +5%, manual attack damage increased by +10%

Not that it really needed the power increase at a higher skill level, but this should make the weapon a bit more fun to use and learn for more casual players as well.

Levels

Durststein

• Added some additional enemies coming in from the right (where the mills are) in some waves. Protecting the mills was a bit too easy on Durststein. This also makes the level a bit more difficult (which should hopefully be fine considering it felt like the easiest level for a lot of you and also considering all of the other buffs in this patch).
• Final wave has some extra ogres coming from the front in the end
• This wave could at times feel a little anticlimactic as all of the enemies are trickling in a bit. This should help with that.

Meta Progression

• Required XP for leveling up reduced across the board by roughly -30% (varying depending on the specific level a bit)
• Some mutators give a bigger score and XP boost as well now.

So far only 10% of players reached the maximum meta progression level unlocking all available perks. On top of that, some people have complained about the meta progression feeling a bit grindy. That was not our intent. In Thronefall the main purpose of the meta progression is to reduce decision paralysis and complexity for new players. Looking at the numbers and the feedback we received from you, we’re happy to speed up this leveling process.

• “Warrior Mode” and “Commander Mode” perk are moved to an earlier point in the meta progression. We received feedback that perks do not feel impactful enough. This feedback usually comes from newer players who feel a bit underwhelmed with the perks they unlock early on so we want to move some of the higher impact perks to an earlier point in the meta progression. Please note: This means the perks you have already unlocked might change a bit as a result of this adjustment.
• Castle center upgrades reordered in the meta progression

Due to the castle center upgrades being rearranged in game, we had to do the same in the meta progression. Please note: This means you might have different upgrades at your disposal now compared to before this patch.

Castle Center Upgrades

Assassin’s Training

• The old effect of this upgrade is completely scrapped.
• New effect: Doubles the cooldown of your auto-attack but it increases your attack damage by +250%.

The main idea of this upgrade was to reward you for skillful play in combat. The previous effect of this upgrade was a bit too confusing and not as interesting as we hoped so we feel like this might be a simpler and more elegant solution to achieve the same thing but better.

Commander Mode

• Instead of the healing aura this upgrade now allows your units to attack while you command them.

This upgrade was intended to be for those who enjoy micro-managing their units and should allow for some expression of skill in Thronefall. We felt like any “punishments” for moving your units should definitely be removed from this upgrade path. In our opinion, this upgrade path makes a lot more sense now and the advantage you gain from this is equal or greater than the healing aura for sure.

Upgrade Order

• The Godly Curse and Magic Armor switched places in the castle center upgrade choices. That means Magic Armor can now be selected as a lvl 2 upgrade and Godly Curse is a castle center lvl 3 upgrade.
• There were two offensive upgrades in the lvl2 choices of the castle center that had too much overlap with each other (Godly Curse and Assassins Training both increase your damage in slightly different ways). Rearranging the upgrades like this resolves this problem and makes both the lvl 2 as well as the lvl 3 choice a bit more interesting.

Buildings

Towers

• “Iron Plates” tower renamed to “Fortress Tower”
• Fortress towers still have the same insane amount of health but they can now shoot two arrows at once. (That means an incredible +100% extra damage output.) Hot oil and ballista towers are extremely powerful so this one better be powerful, too, to keep up. This makes the fortress tower a better all round option for your front line. (It was definitely way too weak considering its price before.)
• Healing orbs from healing towers travel 50% faster. Healing towers are likely never gonna be something you will clutter all over the place, but a healing tower here and there can still be nice for long waves. Faster travel speed for the healing projectiles means you and your units are more likely to survive in battle (the amount healed is already quite good so let’s keep that unchanged for now).

Mill

• Explosive Mills deal +30% more explosion damage when destroyed (on every mill level).
• Scarecrow range increased by 20% and projectile speed increased by 20%
• Wind spirit range increased by 15%
  • The economic upgrade of the mill was still too attractive compared to the other options you can choose here. This should help a bit.

Thronefall Perks

Our goal for perks is to make each of them feel as impactful as possible. That’s why this list is pretty much buffs only. Some perks did not feel all that useful, yet, so we want to make sure each perk has its place in at least some viable builds.

Royal Mint

On top of the passive income from the castle center, this perk also gives a starting gold bonus of +1 now. This perk was already quite useful but we want to make perks feel as impactful as possible so let’s help this one out a bit more. This should make it more useful for low-eco levels like Frostsee.

Heavy Armor

Health boost increased from +300% to +350%. This was already a pretty good perk but it was not used as much (probably due to the fact that the exact numbers were not shown in game). Just to make sure, we gave it a bit of an extra bump to make it even more useful for your warrior builds.

Ring of Resurrection

On top of giving you a fast revive once per night, this perk now also revives all of your dead units with you. Let’s be honest, this perk was utterly useless before this update. Now it should be quite powerful and provide a new strategic option to play around with.

Pumpkin Fields

The health increase for fields has improved from +400% to +900%. This perk needed just a little bit of extra help. Increasing the income of fields further would be too powerful so let’s hope this does the trick.

God’s Lotion

Your health regeneration is improved from +100% to +120%. We want to help this perk out a bit, but we also feel like it’s quite good already, so only making a careful adjustment here for now.

Gladiator School

Your units respawn +75% faster (up from +50% faster). Units are very powerful in Thronefall so having a faster respawn rate is a massive advantage. This perk also makes all barracks more expensive, which is quite a huge downside, though. This power increase should hopefully warrant the extra costs!

War Horse

The cooldown between damage ticks is reduced by 15% making this perk 15% stronger. It is more of a niche perk in Thronefall, but it is quite powerful in certain situations and in the right builds, so only making a careful adjustment.

Big Harbors

In addition to all of the other benefits (more health, 2 more boat capacity) fishing harbors spawn with one boat on the water. Especially niche perks like this should be powerful in order to make sense. We hope this can also help people who are struggling with their economy on Frostsee.

Archery Skills

On top of the existing +60% range increase archers also get +20% move movement speed now. Making this perk more attractive for unit / commander-type builds.

Faster Research

On top of upgrades finishing much faster they now also cost -1 gold. Making this perk more powerful and potentially helping with the economy on Frostsee.

Fortified Houses

Health increased from +150% to +250%. Making this a more viable option as a defensive perk.

Healing Spirits

All healing effects on you and your units are +65% more effective (up from +50%). This is not too bad because this also applies to your self-healing etc.

Ice Magic

The slow effect on enemies lasts +200% longer (up from +100%) and enemies move -30% slower while slowed (-25% before). Not even sure if this is enough to make this an interesting pick, but we hope this will at least help it in some niche builds on specific levels.

Melee Resistance

You, your units and your buildings start the game with +35% resistance against melee attacks (up from +30%). Small buff to make this perk more impactful.

Ranged Resistance

You, your units and your buildings start the game with +35% resistance against ranged attacks (up from +30%). Small buff to make this perk more impactful.

Power Tower

The attack speed of the tower closest to you is increased by +233% (up from +200%). This perk is quite powerful and fun to play around with so let’s help it out a bit more to make sure it remains a viable pick in this ocean of perk-buffs.

Treasure Hunter

Gives you +50 gold (up from +40) before the last night. For casual players, +60 would probably even still be a balanced amount but that would almost force highscore players to go with this perk, so let’s meet in the middle.

Warrior Mode

Your own damage can increase all the way up to +160% (up from +150%). Making careful adjustments as this perk definitely has some game breaking potential when it’s too strong.

Mutators

Challenge the Turtle God

Score Boost increased from +20% to +40%. For highscore hunters this was by far the least popular perk to pick. This change might not even be enough to fix that, but let’s see what happens. This should open the doors for a possible shift in the meta at least.

Challenge the Snake God

Score Boost increased from +20% to +30%. For highscore hunters this was another unpopular pick for obvious reasons (gold being pretty important for your highscore) so this should help in making it a slightly more attractive choice to go with.

Challenge the Falcon God

The chase-the-player duration is decreased by -60% (instead of just -33% before) which makes it more difficult to distract enemies when this perk is active. This should make the mutator feel more impactful and bring it more in line with the difficulty increase of other mutators.

Challenge the God of Destruction

Buildings only heal 25% of their health per day (instead of 33% before). Trying to bring the difficulty increase more in line with the other mutators and trying to make mutators feel more impactful.

Challenge the Wasp God

Instead of only doubling the amount of enemies spawned in the first 3 waves, enemies also spawn in +25% faster in those waves now. As enemies kind of tend to trickle in a bit in the first waves, the difficulty increase from this mutator was not as noticeable as it should have been. This should bring it more in line with the other mutators.

Modding

Two little goodies for the modding community:

• Enemies are in a Resources folder now. This should give you the possibility to spawn in your own enemies.
• Balancing data is in a Resources folder now. Modifying this won’t do anything but you could use it to display additional data in game.

That’s all the changes in the first post-launch Thronefall update, you can check out our early access review here. The game is available in now in Steam Early Access.