Beta Test - 0.2115 - Achieving Balance (now live!)

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
We're entering the final stages of beta testing for the 0.21 update now - and for the first time in the game this update introduces achievements! The first batch (formicarium tier 1) are present here - more will follow suit later down the line. We’ve also done some fairly extensive balancing.

This is an optional beta - if you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. If you're already on the beta branch you won't need to do this; the game should update by itself. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped us test this large update; we’re nearly there now! NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update!

Achieving Balance

Headline Features
  • Achievements are now active on Steam for the first tier of the formicarium. Note you will currently only be able to get these in the beta
  • Some level balance changes, more details below
Balance Changes

Aggrandise
  • Raised the cost of trap jaw ant build to 90 (up from 60)
  • Added black ants to the player’s build options to give a mid-way unit now trap jaw cost has been increased so much
3.2 Front Line
  • On higher difficulties less patrolling creatures appear
  • On higher difficulties more level 2 and 3 army ants will appear
Formicarium Challenge 3
  • Reduced the number of resource refills the enemy colony receives across various difficulties (now 0/1/2/4 down from 0/1/5/10)
  • Reduced reload quantity to 1800 (down from 2000)
  • Resource reloads will now appear gradually (10 per second) rather than instantly
  • Reduced size of cricket drops on harder difficulties
General
  • A couple of achievement times adjusted for balance reasons
  • Creatures set to attack player when damaged now only attack the first player that attacked them and do not switch
Fixes
  • Food reservation now affects leaves and harvestable creatures, so you will not harvest from these unless there is space available for ants to reserve a slot to place them
  • Minor change to a web on 1.2 allowing the spider to see other ants that are on top of its nest
  • Fixed another resource pickup issue that could cause an ant to get stuck trying to pick up a resource
  • Funnel web spider can no longer be introduced after its death has been announced in 1.2
  • Fixed an issue where leaves could be dropped in a way that made them inaccessible around nest entrances
  • Fixed an issue with recent changes to mole crickets that made them spawn on the same spot (and could crash)
  • Fixed an issue that could occur with harvesters when harvesting was turned off (they could walk back and forth to the thing they were previously harvesting for a time)
  • Fixed some bugs with achievements in 1.2
  • Resources dropped from deleting tiles now correctly display food values and appear on the minimap
  • Fixed an issue where ubers were still invading with invasions turned off (again!)
  • Moved some food in the old demo levels to be in caverns
  • Fix added for water rising on low frame rates that could cause it to overshoot (sometimes enough to kill ants coming out of their nest)
  • Fixed an issue where an ant could briefly be given a job as it was heading to the surface, causing its AI to break and not move when it reached the surface
  • Potential fix for ants locking out harvesting of plant from a long distance away
  • Minor adjustments in food size in critters to help flickering
  • Fixed a bug with plant disembarking
  • Leaf sizes are now more sensible in 3.1
  • Fixed a rare crash that could occur in pathfinding
  • Fixed an issue where an ant targeted by a funnel web that was killed could not be targeted by another until ants stopped entering the nest
 
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HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
It was very close, but I was able beat insane difficulty on the new frontline:
I think the frontline mission needs a mechanism to allow the player to win faster if they are constantly killing the army ants, especially on insane difficulty. Either having the progress over time be proportional to the number of army ants alive or force spawning more army ants at the nearest trail if there are too few army ants on the map should do the trick, I think?
 

Mr_Ced

Colony
It was very close, but I was able beat insane difficulty on the new frontline:
I think the frontline mission needs a mechanism to allow the player to win faster if they are constantly killing the army ants, especially on insane difficulty. Either having the progress over time be proportional to the number of army ants alive or force spawning more army ants at the nearest trail if there are too few army ants on the map should do the trick, I think?
If it has already been tweaked to be beatable, I would think that is enough nerfing for now.
 

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
Speaking of which - anyone want to try getting some of the tougher current achievements? Pretty sure most of them won't have been beaten yet.
 

Buffalo981

Queen
Extremely Helpful Person
currently the achievements are only available on the beta right?

edit: of course they are, because challenge 3 difficulties haven't been added to the main game yet
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Speaking of which - anyone want to try getting some of the tougher current achievements? Pretty sure most of them won't have been beaten yet.
If achievements (locally saved) are bound to a formicarium save instead of the user, maybe they could be an interesting way to earn more resources for the formicarium? (To avoid grinding)
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
I almost had the speedy setup on insane (17:44), but it stayed at almost.
I did get "Quantity Not Quality", "Speedy Setup" and "Picky Eater" in the same run, but I do think "Picky Eater" is bugged? Mainly because it was a run on hard difficulty and the achievement requires insane difficulty.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Speaking of which - anyone want to try getting some of the tougher current achievements? Pretty sure most of them won't have been beaten yet.
So... I tried doing the "Get Your Own Eggs" achievement:
And it seems I got a few other achievements by accident? (I think the "NOPE" achievement should not have triggered, as I wasn't fast enough?)
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
YES! I did it!
After beating 3.2 on insane a few days ago, I just beat 3.1 on insane too:
And without using weird exploits! Instead I won by rapidly building up and then containing the opponent, pushing it back whenever it tried to harvest. The opponent starved, allowing me to go in and kill their queen to win the game.
 
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Buffalo981

Queen
Extremely Helpful Person
YES! I did it!
After beating 3.2 on insane a few days ago, I just beat 3.1 on insane too:
And without using weird exploits! Instead I won by rapidly building up and then containing the opponent, pushing it back whenever it tried to harvest. The opponent starved, allowing me to go in and kill their queen to win the game.
Nice! I finally beat this level on insane a few days back for the first time... but not by killing their queen, which I'm guessing will be a 3.1 insane achievement. Have you tried 3.1 or 3.2 on insane with phorid flies? Is that even possible, since the levels (3.2 especially) are already so difficult to beat on insane without phorid flies (I would see it for myself, but I'm on Mac, so I can't opt into the beta).
 

pakitane16

Colony
YES! I did it!
After beating 3.2 on insane a few days ago, I just beat 3.1 on insane too.
And without using weird exploits! Instead I won by rapidly building up and then containing the opponent, pushing it back whenever it tried to harvest. The opponent starved, allowing me to go in and kill their queen to win the game.
One thing I notice is the new entrance layout and the trapjaw ants' pathing. Trapjaws are the main enemies of minor-spamming playstyle as their number and health will stall you a lot of time unless you have many media. The old nest entrances always point north and your ants randomly spawn from the 3 entrances, so when the trapjaws walk by, they will always get in your way or somehow get in your nest. Here, the leafcutters come out from only one entrance most of the time to the northern sites, while the trapjaws move between the entrances' gap, so they don't face each other as much.
And remember this post, I basically suggested using as few media as possible because minor are a bit more efficient, I know there will be some mad men who can do it lol.
http://forum.slugdisco.com/index.ph...nce-feedback-and-suggestions.3160/#post-15634
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
One thing I notice is the new entrance layout and the trapjaw ants' pathing. Trapjaws are the main enemies of minor-spamming playstyle as their number and health will stall you a lot of time unless you have many media.
On insane the trapjaw ant groups get so big fighting them is more expensive than letting them kill a some minor ants to let them walk past. (Minor ant respawn is dirt cheap anyway, and once the trapjaws have walked away all foraging continues.)

And remember this post, I basically suggested using as few media as possible because minor are a bit more efficient, I know there will be some mad men who can do it lol.
I do not remember that post because it is from before I became active on the forum.
I agree that the current leafcutter balance is a tiny bit off. (Especially because in game media are called "The staple harvesters" while minor ants provide more income per food spend on them than media do.) But media ants do have a very important role in my play style. I set them to forage together with minor ants, but in a seperate group. The media group is allowed to attack, the minor ant group is not. At the same time I use small packs of major ants to cut off choke points and assist the media that have encountered any enemies.
 
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