Dear Players.
We bring you something different this time.
We have implemented two new games modes. If you want to replay Tower of Time or if you (a New Player) don’t really like cRPGs so much and prefer fast paced games like Darkest Dungeon – you might find this enjoyable. Several other improvements were also made based on your feedback and are listed below.
All in all – this is quite an exciting update, which far exceeds typical updates we have done before. Apologies for the wall of text below, but there are really a lot of changes.
RPGlite and Permadeath game modes
This mode has the following features:
- You start in the city.
- All 7 champions are available in the beginning.
- Blacksmith (Tier I gear), Transmute and Enchanting is enabled.
- All class buildings are upgraded to the max, so you can level up whatever champions you wish, providing you have the resources.
- First 4 floors of the Tower are immediately unlocked, so you can move down whenever you are ready. Remaining parts are unlocked when you descend through the stairs at the end of the given floor.
- You can skip Dialogues and temporarily unlock doors and remove barriers, that usually require doing a quest (via the means of “skip content lever”.
- Party alignment is changed to Party Boost and depends on the level of the champion.
- Some starting resources, so you can customize your starting party a bit.
- Save games are now in separate categories: Normal, RPGlite, Permadeath. --- PERMADEATH mode ---
- Permadeath mode is for those truly wishing to test themselves. When your champion die in battle, he/she cannot re-enter the tower (unless you resurrect him in combat) and you continue with remaining party.
- New difficulty setting for Permadeath - Blood - which is the only one available for this mode. It starts relatively easy, so you get the resources to build up your party and then ramps up to half way between Hard and Epic.
- Game ends when you loose all your champions OR when you reach the end of floor 11 with at least a single one.
If you played ToT before and descended to 2nd level, this mode should unlock automatically. If you are a new player - you need to kill end level 1 boss (and get familiar with game mechanics in the process).
So now you will be able to pick Whisper and Kaela as the starting party and build them as pure glass cannons or Boron and Rakhem that will rush into the swarms of enemies to cleave them, laughing all the way.
Leaderboards and Game Score
We have also implemented game score for RPGlite and Permadeath, which tells you how well you did overall. You can compare this score with other Players on the new Leaderboard. The score gives you positive points for first three fights on a given level and then deducts a small number after the third battle. The objective is to descend to the last floor as efficiently as possible, without grinding – so your tactical skills and party building abilities are tested here.
Score also takes into account difficulty level – giving you more points for Hard and Epic for the first three battles on the level and also deducting less points for each subsequent battle.
Challenges do not count into the score, so you can do them at your leisure.
We have also implemented DPS Race Leaderboards for several bosses, which sum up DPS of all party members.
To check Leaderboards – click on
And then select:
Please note that this score only records in RPGlite and Permadeath modes.
Items and Attributes
Based on your feedback, we have also made some significant changes to the items as well and strengthened weapon damage overall (so Skills / Mastery does not trump everything).
- Reduced RNG on base stats. Each Weapon sub-type is now different. Each Armor, Ring and Amulet type is also different, you can check it when you go to our new crafting panel.
- Removed some of the “weak” combinations of pre-fixes and suffixes that immediately were dismantled.
- You will be able to select which item sub-type you wish to craft. Some items are more powerful or special so they also cost more. When you click on the question mark, you can see exactly what stats those items have.
- Possible magical stats for crafted items and looted items are now separated. Only looted items can give you a rare and powerful stat such as Spectral (which restores your mana for each weapon hit) or Chaotic (which has a small chance to Stun, Daze or Slow enemies). So now you should never disregard looted items – and consider them turning into Epic and Enchanted gear using the forges.
- Items have much more distinctive characteristics – e.g. each of the three 2-handed Swords have a very different stats and unique characteristics now. If you want to have a high stun chance for your melee champions, then you will be able to do so.
- Might and Speed attributes are now more powerful, making Weapon-based builds on par with Mastery. At 50 attribute points they now grant 150% boost to Weapon Damage and Attack Speed vs. 100% boost to Skill Damage from Mastery.
- Melee weapons are now scaling much better than Range weapons, so melee-focused party is certainly viable now.
- Enchanting panel is reworked, not resetting anymore when you switch champions and also showing all possible enchants for the item (Locked), so you can see whether you have missed any enchantment.
- Cost of enchantments is generally reduced, so you should not be afraid to use them.
- Likewise, cost of item forge upgrade has been reduced, as the last slots were far too expensive and rarely anyone used them.
Champions, Skills, Enemies
We have spent a lot of time also re-balancing and re-working some of the skills and enemies as well. One -- because we always wanted to do so based on received feedback and two -- because we had to level the starting point for all champions - to ensure that any starting combination of champions is viable, even if some of the combinations are more difficult than the others.
We have reduced Health scaling for the enemies on Hard and Epic and instead improved their skills and resistances.
We have changed some of the end-game bosses, modifying their abilities to ensure that on Hard and Epic the fights do not drag long but instead are quicker and more intense.
We have re-tuned some of the fights, creating quite interesting scenarios – e.g. a group of only construct crossbowmen that cast their frostbite bolts frequently, effectively immobilizing your party if you don’t counter them.
Another thing changed was mana availability – at the end-game mana regeneration was so high that no one had to care about it, spamming skills as soon as they went off cooldown. So we made several adjustments here as well – mana regeneration is generally decreased, while maximum mana on items plays a bigger role now. Now items and enchantments that generate mana on hit should be essential.
Finally, Boron now starts the combat with 25 rage. So he can jump into the group of those pesky Wraiths instantly. Yeah!
Other changes
Having worked on this update for a long time, we also took an opportunity to make several general improvements as well. Here is a list of most important ones.
- Anti-aliasing now works correctly (it is called FXAA)
- Few Battlegrounds were improved or even changed significantly, such as Titan Battleground.
- Added voice confirmations for champions in combat, so the combat is more lively now.
- Several skill SFX were improved, all range projectiles and a lot of skills.
- UI was optimized, improving FPS, especially for low-end configurations.
Turkish language added
Lastly, but very important – we have added Turkish language thanks to the efforts of community translators: Gökhan Halil Düzgün and Arda Can Coşkun. Big thanks!
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If we see that RPGlite and Permadeath modes are popular, we would consider organizing regular competitions for the highest Permadeath SCORE and the highest DPS on specific bosses.
We hope you will enjoy playing Tower of Time’s new game modes. As always – if you have a feedback or an issue, please let us know via an in-game Report Issue tool or hop on our Discord to chat with us directly. As you can see - we listen to your voice very closely - and even if we are busy working on a new project, we will not forget about Tower of Time.
Cheers,
Event Horizon team
