Do you mean that Gauss should remain a main damage dealer on a majority of maps?

One of mine concerns is the fact that players are forced to use Gauss if they want to have a chance to compete on the leaderboards. According to the reports, Gauss also gives around 6x more damage per coin spent on it, so it is clearly overpowered in 1.8.10 and some early builds of 1.9.0. The best damage / coin ratio and the highest damage will mean that it is a no-brainer to use it and you will be at a huge loss if you don't use it. There is no alternative to Gauss, which means that using it is not a strategy but simply a requirement, which in my opponion does not make this game more interesting or challenging. As a different point of view, imagine a player who does not like Gauss but is forced to use it anyways.

Also it is concerning that there are 16 different towers and only 1 of them can do enough damage to deal with a later waves. It sticks out too much, and I actually don't mind it if the price for that is accordingly large, but that's not the case with 1.8.10 / builds before 202, because it is not only the most damaging tower but also it is the cheapest one.

Gauss from Build 203 is clearly underpowered and its stats will be adjusted, but my goal is to make Gauss be a very damaging but also accordingly pricey tower. Build 203 actually shows an adequate damage-to-coin ratio of Gauss but its max damage is not high enough - I may increase its damage and price, and reduce the remaining HP down to 13-15%, but it should not be a problem because I believe that a single tower has not deal so much damage for such a cheap price to the point this remaining HP percentage affects the gameplay so much.

And I believe it would be much more fun and challenging if there were multiple ways to achive a high score. I know you are a competitive player but it should not be an issue for you even if I remove Gauss completely - there will be some other meta and the purpose of competition is to find the smartest players who find this new meta, because if I leave Gauss the same it will mean that everyone will have to use the same strategy in Season 3 again and it ruins the whole purpose of a new season.

Not that I think, but it really is, even if it's expensive, even if it's cheaper than any other tower, it still has irreplaceable advantages: small footprint, maximized tile/modifier utilization, percentage damage, miner double time. If these mechanics are not completely reworked, competitive leaderboards will have to be used.

even if it is cost-effective, weak enough to be like other towers

Also, you increase the price of all towers, but not the economy gain rate, some maps will not have enough coin to upgrade Gauss in the middle of a game.

We know that the growth rate of blood volume is greater than the growth rate of economic growth, and the growth rate of blood volume will continue to accelerate, relying on the basic damage of the tower in the early game to save the economy, and relying on the most cost-effective Gauss in the middle stage, but the economy will not be able to catch up with the blood volume sooner or later. This issue only occurs on large maps in 1.8, but it is currently the same for small maps

There are a lot of broken strategies on Endless and I don't believe it is really an issue that is, or needs to be, addressed. Looking at Flamethrower Ultimate in a vacuum, it isn't very appealing, enemies having 5% less health for a casual player is not a deal breaker. But for normal mode leaderboards, with the context of Gauss, it removes essentially 50% of enemy hp after Gauss does its job, and that isn't exactly exciting. That is why I have proposed a hp% cutoff nerf (10%->15%)
With that said, 17% nanoparticles threshold is too much and most likely an oversight; 15% might still be too high; and 12-14% should be ideal.
Speaking of 6.4, I have enjoyed it a lot after the Gauss nerf, even though it was hard and I didn't play well.

Do you think solving 5% health is an easy task? It's actually quite difficult, for some small maps, when you play 200-300 waves in normal mode, 5% HP kills already take a certain amount of time, while in 300-400 waves it's almost impossible.

If you're really proficient in high-score play, you should understand that even a 1% more HP threshold is a big deal.

In addition, some of the high-scoring play styles on small maps use sniper kills, which is characterized by group kills, but once one wave is not fully handled, it will cause the subsequent three or even four waves to be unable to deal with it. The 17% threshold has brought this time node forward from 290 waves to 240 waves, at which time the lineup damage is still sufficient, but it cannot handle residual health. IMHO, I'm annoyed to play.

I think you'll already understand that even if you cut Gaussian cheaper than all the towers, it's still a must for leaderboard players. The first is because it only occupies one tile, the second is that Gauss provides percentage damage and gold bonuses, and the third is that Gauss gives double to the miner. Its high damage combined with any of the above mechanics is enough to make him the core of the top scoring strategy, and there is absolutely no substitute. Can you imagine playing a score at 1.1 without Gauss over using Gauss? That can only mean a tower with a more supermodel than Gauss. I've already stated that it's either a complete redo or a deletion, or we don't have a choice. The adjustments you've made to Gauss at the moment will only make us more annoyed and tired of playing, and unless we all become recreational players, then this game won't appeal to me anymore, except for the top score

There is a problem with this translation, I would say that even Gauss cost-effective less than all towers

One more thing I discussed with you before is that if you're trying to break the full system of 1.8, you need to create a new system instead, but you said that 1.9 needs to be done as soon as possible, so I didn't think about that aspect (without using Gauss) because it would take a lot of time. I thought you understood the importance of Gauss to the leaderboards, but now you don't seem to know. The price-performance ratio you modified is only one of his aspects, and there is a premise in this - without such a high price-performance ratio, the game will not last long, because the economy can't keep up with the growth of HP as I said above, which also leads to the current high-score game process becoming very bad. I thought at the time that the different high-score strategies you mentioned were map-based, like special maps like 6.6. Because I understand that as long as Gauss exists, it is impossible to use a normal map, and I thought you did.

There are some problems with this translation, I hope you can understand what I mean

I missed a key point, Gauss also has one of the strongest aspects, for low-density and 100% efficient enemies, it can not rely on skill processing, this time will be used to restore energy points, other towers can't do it, if you play version 1.8 of the map 3.2, you will know this.

As baiqi said, gauss is still the only choice to deal with 200+waves, both in theory and practically. We can't persuade each other in theory，so what we can do to prove it is to launch a community contest with no limitations in beta version and observe what players with high scores use to survive the 200+waves. And then the data can help you adjust gauss even other towers better.Besides, to the other point about the percentage of hp, what we leaderboards players enjoy is the perfect combination of the hp damaged by gauss and the hp damaged by other towers. It means that at the time when the gauss can't deal with the major hp of the enemy, other towers just right can't deal with the left ten percentage of hp. And either of the two process is to high or too low, we will be annoyed to hit higher waves and scores, not only in difficulty but also in mood and motivation.

-----Gaorege

As mentioned in the update log, infinitode2 is a perfect game. Its gameplay has been finalized. Gauss and skills are the main ways to cause damage in the later stage. Other towers are used to assist Gauss. In 1.8, some towers are not suitable for assistance because of the value and mechanism, so few people make it. The most typical ones are cannon and multiple shooting.
Gauss is different from other towers. It needs a mine, so it can be regarded as a part of the miner. The biggest feature of inf2 is the miner.
In my opinion, what developers need to do is to balance the value and mechanism between skills and other towers, rather than changing and overthrowing one of the core gameplay of the game. Even if Gauss‘s skill is weakened, no tower can replace it.

I mean, just look at the top 1000 replays from 1.8.10
https://infinitode.prineside.com/stats2/per-level.php?count=1000&modes[]=BASIC_LEVELS

Gauss is by far the most damaging and the most cost-effective tower from all, and it dominates almost every single map in terms of both damage (4x-11x) and cost efficiency (2x-7x). It is clearly broken, I can't believe anyone would deny that.
Nanoparticles are basically used in every single replay.

I don't mind if it dominates some maps, I don't mind if it has the most damage from all towers, but it is way, way too overpowered and its first ability (nanoparticles) is clearly a "go to" solution for every run.
As I've said, it brings nothing to the "strategy" part of this game - you have to use it, and there's nothing fun in it, except the fact it is a beloved tower for some players (mostly because its superiority above everything else).
You may say "then buff eferything else" (and I did that to some extent) but the final result won't differ from simply reducing its efficiency.

Now let's think about the "there's no other way to deal with a very high enemy waves":
First of all, there are no quests, no additional rewards or anything else that will become unobtainable for you if you can no longer reach a very high wave. High waves are problematic - game lasts way too long, and at that stage the broken balance of towers becomes extremely obvious.

Long story short, a good strategy game should not provide 16 different towers where you are forced to use only one of them. This hugely narrows down the amount of possible strategies and, for people who do not like Gauss, will make the game's balance look awful.

I don't really understand why you are so upset because all this... Well, I can guess - you and a few other players are at the top of the leaderboards now (top 2), you know the secret of how to dominate them and you are used to them. There's no chance for almost anyone else to compete with you. These changes affect you personally, they will wipe out hours of your time spent mastering this strategy and it pushes you out of the comfort zone. It is not pleasant for you and you will feel a massive burn out because you will have to search for a new strategy. And I believe you should try to take it easier - season 2 will remain in history, and your effort will be remembered, just like I remember how Apocalypse has dominated Season 1 leaderboard. Season 3 is a restart of leaderboards and it has a new balance, to give other players a chance to feel good about them by spotting the best strategies. I do not expect you to dominate Season 3 - this would require too much of an effort and would be simply too crazy to achieve (but if you win 2 different seasons, I'll say that you are the smartest player I've ever seen). Changes to the balance were made to give every player a new challenge, a fresh breath of air where you don't have to stare at the same towers for years again, and nothing says that you will no longer be able to get top 1 in season 3 - you already have lots of knowledge about the mechanics of the game and it actually will be much easier for you to dominate the leaderboards.

I'll try to extract what I understand from your messages:

• Gauss became weaker - this is not a problem by itself if it is justified. My justification on this is the link I've mentioned above - this tower dominates absolutely everything, on almost every level. There's no variety in strategies because of that, and the best scores will be achieved by someone who got used to Gauss and can use a single tower in the most efficient way - not by someone who knows how to combine all 16 towers that may perform better or worse on a specific levels.
• Nanoparticles leave more HP. First of all, this ability is the most powerful among all abilities of all towers - they usually increase tower's efficiency by around x1.3 while this one gives x2 damage. It needs nerfing - I could simply remove the "remaining HP" part of it and reduce the damage multiplier from x2 to around x1.3 but it will become a generic High Caliber from a Basic tower. If we consider the balance of all other abilities and scale it accordingly: x1.3 damage affects 100% of enemy's HP. If we want to increase it up to x1.6, it should not affect the lower 50% HP of the enemy. For x2 re amount of HP it affects will be even lower (>50%) but currently it is at 17% (And I'm still going to decrease it to around 13%). This ability is still overpowered, it still breaks balance, and actually the root of the problem lies not in this ability but in the overall too high efficiency of Gauss - it just makes this problem 2x more obvious. And, as it is beneficial for a player and is not 2x underperforming instead, you don't want it to be nerfed and exactly this fact makes you upset.
• It will be harder or even impossible to reach high waves - as I've mentioned before, high waves are problematic. In terms of competition, they bring nothing to the scene - top leaderboard results are way above, say, top 1-2% of the leaderboards, but difference between places 1-5 is actually very small, because here you compete using almost the same strategy and rely on a small micromanagement tricks to make this strategy a bit more effective. I understand that it will be harder for you to compete, because if there are multiple strategies to this - the competition is more challenging, diverse and requires an understanding of all aspects of the game and not just a small set of towers or modifiers. But again, it has nothing to do with a high waves - I'll repeat myself saying that very high waves are only achievable because of a single overpowered tower and they limit the amount of strategies you could use.

Now regarding the changes I make and my vision of all this:
My goal is to make it possible to use different strategies to get the highest score or at least make different strategies perform better on different levels. This is my definition of a strategy - a strategy game should not force you to use a single strategy, and the more different strategies have a chance to shine - the better is the "strategy" part of the game.
Nerfing one tower will suddenly give a chance to 15 other towers to not be useless. I'm not going to nerf it to the ground - I'm only going to adjust it in a way that makes Gauss dominate in no more than 50% of levels.
Regarding the competitive part and leaderboards: no matter what happens to any stat, tower, ability or mechanic, the competition will not simply disappear. People will find new ways to dominate on some maps, and in my oppinion it is better if there are multiple different strategies one can discover which perform better in different situations. Currently the leaderboards are dominated by players who know that one single strategy and know how to use it - it is not actually a competition between the whole playerbase but only between those few players who have mastered that one strategy. It is completely wrong, just as wrong as using a single tower to beat the whole game. Other towers must not be useless in a presence of a single tower, and changes to Gauss do exactly this.

These changes are not aimed at you or any of the top 10 players specifically. They just make a balance a bit more more sane in Season 3 and are aimed at improving a diversity of strategies - not because I'm nasty enough and want to screw you somehow, don't take them personally.

And for the changes regarding Gauss I'm about to introduce in build 204+

• Values introduced in build 202 will be partially reverted - as I've said, the purpose of the beta test is to test things, experiment and find the min/max possible values. They are not final.
• Nanoparticles currently leave 17% of HP, and intended percentage was 15% for the last build - I just did not spot the fact that research for this stat is not available in a normal mode. It will be reduced to 13-15% but not to 10% - as I've said, even with 17% this ability is overpowered, but it the real problem lies in the Gauss' overall efficiency which this ability multiplies
• According to the statistics of build 203, Gauss currently performs roughly the same as the other towers. I'm going to improve that too, and my goal is to make it dominate on maps where sources allow it to dominate. It will be costly, but the goal damage-to-coin of it will be adjusted in a way it no longer exceeds every other tower by more than x2-x3. It will be harder to find a perfect usage for it but it will still be possible. Again - my goal is to make it dominate on some maps and not on every single map, as it is seen in 1.8.10 (the first link I've mentioned in this message)

It's not what you think, I don't mind if you completely turn the gameplay upside down, I certainly want the game to have more strategy, it will be fun, and I'm confident that I can find the best solution from it. It seems that the problem is that our understanding of Gauss is somewhat different, and you underestimate Gauss. As I said, the advantages of Gaussian - that are irreplaceable, and if you want to get the top score, you can't do without using it, unless it's really far lower than other towers, and the negative benefits are already outweighing. You want to get top points without Gauss in more than half of the levels, but unfortunately this is not possible, no matter how much you try to weaken its skills and stats, as long as it is not lower than the damage/coins of other towers, the score of using Gauss will be higher than not using it. I've repeated this several times and I don't understand why you can't understand it. The reason I'm sad is that you made Gauss very hard to use, and I had to, and I couldn't agree more if you could make him completely useless. In fact, I talked to Dense early in 1.8 about this being an unreasonable tower, that it was so powerful that other towers could only be used as supports, eliminating the possibility of other strategies, and I agreed with that.

I think we need to identify the points of divergence first. On the premise that Gauss's damage/coins are not lower than those of other towers, it has the following advantages:

1. It occupies one block, which will maximize the utilization of tiles and chips.
2. It can provide extra gold, which is very important in an environment where most towers are increasing in price.
3. Has a percentage burst damage, which plays a crucial role in the growth of MDPS in the mid to late game, as well as mines for air defense towers.
4. It can provide double time for the mining machine, which brings a huge score gain, and my 5.8 can break through 10 million all thanks to this fourth point.
5. Its strong output ability in the big late strong/armor waves, can also suspend the pressure of energy points.
   I don't understand how not using Gauss can compete with people who use Gauss for the leaderboard.
   And on the premise that you have to use Gauss, all your actions to weaken Gauss are degrading my gaming experience, which is the root cause of my complaints.

We all know now that in the normal mode of the beta version, a skill from Gauss can reduce enemy health to 17%. I believe this aligns with some people's vision, but the impact of this adjustment on Gauss is fatal. Gauss's position in the later game is comparable to that of Antinir in the air force. Antinir can defend air forces with over 200 waves alone, like a god of war.
Gauss, on the other hand, is expensive in cost and requires a significant amount of resources to use. Most importantly, it cannot be used in the early stages and requires the coordination of other turrets, as well as appropriate angles, and so on. In addition to the recent damage to Gauss, EXP Modifiers have reduced their resources and increased their demand. The intensity is no longer sufficient to support over 200 wave games.
At least, Gauss can hardly play on his own and can appear for a period of time in the game. Without the help of other turrets, he is unable to use it, and damage is the only thing in life.
Freezing, no damage, but Freezing can reduce speed by up to 65%, which is not even more terrifying for the overall bonus. Is there any level that doesn't require Freezing? It's just that the division of labor for the artillery is different.
My suggestion is to reduce the enemy's health to 17% with Gauss, which can be retained. Just like in real life where people are injured, it is possible to consider adding a heavy damage effect to the enemy, making them more vulnerable and receiving higher damage from certain sources. For example, if the enemy is seriously injured by Gauss 1 skill, they will receive more bullet damage, so that other turrets can also provide sufficient output and supply, which is quite good.

A little idea that is a bit unrealistic for S3, but maybe something for S4:

• Gauss gets default 5-10% hp threshold as a gold stat
• Gauss Nanoparticles boost that to 15-20%
• Gauss Self Improvement slightly improved
• Gauss Superconductors reduce Fuel/Resource cost, and maybe increase or decrease charging speed (No more extra coins)
• Gauss lv10/Special/Overload unchanged
• Gauss Ultimate applies a vulnerability debuff to severely damaged enemies (No more extra score)
• Some "bad" tower gets the Bonus Coins ability (Cannon, or Multishot...). I.E. Comedy Bullet gives 100% extra coins on kill, or Cannon mines apply the debuff on contact, or something of this sort.
• Something can also inherit the mining speed ability from Gauss Ultimate. I.E. Minigun builds microguns near/on miners, that give double mining time for kills.

Vulnerability debuff actually may be a way to go. It will increase the damage of other towers but at the same time killshot and instant kill abilities won't benefit from it.

So let's start with reducing the remaining HP to 15% and debuffing enemies with Vulnerability, which increases damage dealt to them from other towers by 50-100%, what else will you suggest to do with Gauss for the next build?

The reason I complained was that I still had to use Gauss, but my gaming experience was much worse. The first thing I said in the email is that the most important thing about a game is the player's game experience, and the second is whether the extended content of the game can immerse the player, which is what you call interest. And your goal in modifying Gauss is to make it an optional tower, so that it is no longer absolutely competitive. But I don't think that's possible, Gaussian is so big - not because of the numbers, but because of the mechanics. Breaking the current system requires a whole overturn and rework, and we don't have that time. And if you can't overturn the system, Gauss can't change it in order to maintain the player's gaming experience, because it's the absolute core of the current system, and all strategies are built around it - no matter how much you weaken it, you can't change that. That's where we come into conflict, you want more strategy, so weaken Gauss. I'd also like to have more strategy, but with my 4,000 hours of game understanding, I don't think that weakening Gauss will make you choose other towers as cores, so I choose to keep my gaming experience.

As for Gauss's HP retention threshold, why do I insist on 10%, because in the late stage of the current system (note that it is the late game, multiple Gauss), 90% of Gauss's damage without additional damage is close to 10% of other towers, which can achieve a perfect balance - that is, when Gauss's damage is insufficient, snipers can no longer complete residual health processing. Anything below 10% doesn't help, but more than 12% is a huge impact, as the termination threshold for snipers is 13% (with blast falloff)

No matter how hard it is to use something, it will be a core and you will use it only if it makes you score higher. If it does not help you - you won't use it, simple as that. I've re-read your messages many times and don't see a problem in any of the changes I could make. Everything is abstract and I still don't fully understand how your gaming experience is tied to a single ability of a single tower, in a game with 80+ different abilities and 16 towers. There's definitely something deeper than what you've mentioned, because I've not even changed a mechanic - this change affects only a single value.

Once again, let's imagine you are talking from a point of view of our playerbase (because I can't make a game for a dozen of players and disregard the others) - what exactly makes your gameplay so much worse? You constantly mention your playing experience but what is it exactly? Do you have to spend 10x more time on something, or maybe some mechanic is unpredictable and so random that it makes the scoring totally based on luck? A "tower allowed to survive for 30 more waves and now it does not" is not something that affects player's experience, considering it is a huge step towards more fair balance overall

A threshold of 17% will make it very difficult to harvest residual health, even if Gauss does enough damage but there are not enough places on the mini-map to replenish the sniper. The uncomfortable part is that it doesn't reach the upper limit of what this map can achieve at all, but it can't continue because of a change in a certain link. I've already said that 1.8 has formed a complete system, and now you have weakened one of the key points, so the balance that was formed before has been disrupted.

Ranking and competition can be conducted in any situation, of course, there is no problem.
If what I want to say is that if the damage of all turrets is reduced by 10 times, there is still competition and corresponding strategies, but the overall player experience has indeed deteriorated. The game ended shortly after playing, which can be disappointing.
The various weakening of Gauss, even if not as exaggerated as 10 times, is almost several times. This is a loss of gaming experience, not just a loss in terms of numbers.
In fact, theoretically speaking, if the first Gaussian attacks an enemy with remaining health, it can rely on the second Gaussian for harvesting. However, this is actually very difficult. The hindrance of health enemies renders this harvest ineffective. When the waves are high, you will always see many enemies with low health percentages that cannot be dealt with enter the base.
I was testing the B201 version of the game on the testing server and once almost attacked all the maps. The experience is pretty good. After the Gaussian transformation, I couldn't help but cry while playing on the same map, but I still had to use Gaussian even if it was further weakened by half. But it makes people cry, which is the loss of the gaming experience.
Why not choose to create the latter between intense competition and joyful competition? This is a game...

It is the core, of course, but this nerf means that stronger auxiliary towers are needed. Let's say Gauss's upper limit can hit 300 waves, but I can only play 250 waves now because of the residual health problem, is it easier to understand this one, this link problem caused me to be unable to play the whole game, and my follow-up strategy could not be realized.

Upper limit of a map in terms of what specifically? Do you upgrade all your towers to L10 (if they benefit from that) and end up on a map where there's nothing else to upgrade? Or is there some other definition of an upper limit?

As you can imagine, I need to develop a different strategy for each map, and I don't even have 700 hours of actual gameplay, and most of the time is spent pausing in the game interface. And when I used the 202 version of Gauss to challenge the leaderboard of map 1.3, I only got to 240 waves and started to leak, so that I didn't want to continue at all. This map can last up to 330 waves in version 201, and this feeling of disparity hit me hard, so I wrote that email in anger.

The upper limit of the map is the theoretical score limit, combined with damage, remnant blood harvest, skill distribution, accurate to 1 frame to summon and Gauss fire. For example, each module is guaranteed to hit 300 waves, but there was only a big problem with the remnant blood harvest, resulting in only 250 waves to finish, so I asked for a callback of 10%.

I'm afraid you may be fighting on the side of the old balance exactly because you remember how far you were able to go with that single strategy. It surely is not comfortable for you and I understand that, but keeping it may be a mistake and I'm risking here to make Season 3 not much more different than Season 2, only by preserving an overpowered mechanic.

Can we agree that your experience will be ruined because you are used to beating much higher wave with Gauss in the previous version of the game, and now it makes your defense feel much weaker?

The point I'm uncomfortable with is indeed because of its weakening, but the point I don't understand is that you think that weakening Gauss can improve the presence of other towers. Of course, if you can really reduce it to a dispensable state, I couldn't agree more, because it's essentially a way to make the game less difficult. Gauss increases the game's ceiling, but it also greatly increases the complexity of the game, and you need to think about a lot of things, which makes it take up to a dozen games to determine the ceiling of a map. If it weren't for Gauss, maybe I would have scored two or three points.

If it weren't for Gauss, maybe I would have scored in two or three games.

like map 3.2 v1.8

I know you are competing with other players for the first place on the leaderboards. Did you ever feel like there are not enough ways to improve your score a bit more and bypass some other player? And also, isn't using Gauss on almost every map at least a bit boring?

Actually, I didn't fight for the first place, for me the whole fun of this game is to delve into the limits of a map, like 5.5, 5.8, 6.4 (5.5 I discussed with Dense for a week, 5.8 and the three of us worked hard for a whole month), and I felt very happy. Maybe in the early game I would have focused on rankings, but now I don't care about that. Using Gauss for every map was not only boring, but also tiring, because strategizing for Gauss was a very complicated thing, but I had to use it. It is precisely because I understand its power that I feel that your weakening of Gauss is not at the key point - just making it very uncomfortable to use, but it is still an irreplaceable position.

If we had enough time, I'd be happy to help you implement a game without Gaussian as the core, but aren't we running out of time?
Gauss is the absolute core of the old version, and if you want to replace him, you need to build a new core and gameplay, which involves more than just Gauss, and it takes a lot of time to modify and test.

I can only ask you to excuse me, but I believe it is possible to shift Gauss' power in a way it opens a way to other combinations of towers on the other maps, that's why I'll continue to experiment with it in an attempt to push it closer to something I wanted it to be from the beginning. I do not mean to do harm or annoy anyone but these changes do not break any of the promises I've ever made and I can't give up on my ideas if I can't see problems in it. Your vision may pursue some goals that are different from mine and that's why we can not find a common ground (which won't satisfy anyone). I'll take a risk and adjust Gauss in a way I believe it has to be done, remembering your concerns and suggestions

I have no goal in making anything a core. My goal is to make a game in a way where it does not revolve around a single thing. Ideally, for example, you should be able to use Bounty and strategy A or use no Bounty and strategy B to achieve the same thing. Or use Overload and strategy C and no Overload and strategy D. Gameplay cores are bad things in my eyes if they can not be anything except this single tower. I want anything to be able to become a core (in my dreams) and this is the goal I'm trying to reach.

I can understand that your intention is right, the game should be diverse, and when I do balance, I will also bring players as many ways to clear the level as possible, and there is definitely not only one way. It's just that I think it's difficult to completely subvert the gameplay of such a complex game in a short period of time (and version 1.9 has dragged on for too long, and many people are urging it), so my previous suggestions are to use the old version of the system as a reference to preserve the player's game experience as much as possible. Of course, it's beta now, maybe inspiration can make your ideas come true in a short time, I'll be happy for you, good luck!

But when a game rises to the level of competition, it will inevitably be summed up by the player to find the optimal solution, and this system must have a core gameplay to support.

Even if you don't modify it in this direction, you won't be able to stop it, and this core will definitely appear in order to pursue the limit, and the new version of the top score gameplay will be built around this core. The core can be anything, a tower, a skill, a train of thought. Having a core in advance will only make the game more comfortable to play, as the author has made them self-contained.

You can indeed develop multiple strategies for a map, and I've changed a dozen strategies for a map. But the purpose is the optimal solution after all. It's really hard to have no absolute core, which means that your mechanics are very, very well balanced, and you don't get much different points no matter what lineup or idea you use. Not only do different towers have different application scenarios, but they also have different abilities and specialties

Note on Gauss damage/coin efficiency: For gauss to remain an effective tower, Gauss damage to coin efficiency will always be significantly better than other towers, due to how miners and resources work. Of course, if gauss didn't exist, you would build miners anyways for score, but gauss will always require massive investment into miners before being able to be use effectively. In addition, because of how resource consumption works, gauss placement is encouraged to be as coin efficient as possible. You want the least possible gauss placed to defend effectively, because that will not overconsume resources/ take up places for mining speed modifiers, that could be used to farm score, while other towers may invite overinvestment: to build xp level passively, clear waves faster, or simply to support and be sold when no longer needed. Gauss is used significantly less in these roles. In addition, other towers which may be able to farm greater damage/coin in later waves are often reduced in favor of towers that are good at gauss cleanup, sold in late game, or built in lesser quantity (in favor of gauss). This is not to say gauss's damage per coin is low, it is still probably too efficient, but taking into these factors, perhaps it could remain similarly efficient, or escape with a small reduction and still be balanced.

In terms of balancing the 1st ability, nanoparticles, it is impossible to make it weak in the way of raising the threshold. The damage increase is way too much, even making it something like 30% remaining hp will not change that, raising the threshold too much simply makes gauss the only available solution as an effective cleanup tower. To balance nano, you will have to introduce a tradeoff that reduces potential damage in certain situations. Increasing resource consumption, reduced charging speed, or inability to hit certain enemies (opposite of air abilities on missile/multishot), or simply lower the damage bonus. Since gauss's greatest strength is raw damage, anything which significantly increases the damage, will be a certain pick.

If we assume that we wish to keep gauss as the single strongest tower in terms of damage output, the question remains as to how strong compared to other towers you want it to be. Raw damage nerf, removal of basic+gauss bug, xp modifier nerf, are all nerfs. Overload nerf, is nerf on maps with limited resources. Resource consumption increase? not significant in normal, but still a nerf. Nano threshold increase? Nerf. All of these on their own is understandable, but taken together, things do not look good for gauss. Gauss is STILL the only source of double time, STILL the only tower with bonus coins ability, STILL the only tower able to deal with late game waves. But now it is significantly more painful to use than before, requiring more support and investment, for less. I believe many players upset is that gauss still appears to be mandatory (like freeze as PPQQ pointed out, gauss is irreplacable currently), but just feels worse to use now. Maybe that is okay, maybe the anger is unjustified, maybe gauss is more balanced, the game is more balanced, the strategy more advanced. But what do players want?

Maybe players don't actually want balance. Maybe they want things to stay the same, maybe they want to be comfortable in their strategy, the same thing working for them as it always has. Maybe they enjoy having an overpowered tower make enemies go boom, while other towers struggle.

But I think the reason why many players are upset about the gauss nerfs and the overload changes is very difficult to quantify. As if they don't like the direction. Don't like the "feel". People like underdog stories, where the weak rise to prominence. People like seeing bigger numbers. Bigger boom. More waves, more score, more damage. People don't like seeing minigun going from one of the best towers to one of the worst, or overload changed in such a drastic way, just as many people feel more anguish from losing 1000 dollars in the stock market than they do joy from gaining 2000 . Of course, you will always need to nerf some overpowered things cough sniper cough, but I believe that many players are hoping even just subconsciously, for the ability for more waves, more score, stronger towers, etc. I believe many players would be less upset with the changes if more score was possible, and/or more buffs and less nerfs were applied. Score inflation can be a problem, but personally, I think a little bit of it is a good idea.

ALU reminds me of an aspect that I subconsciously overlooked, Gauss represents the upper limit of the game, and Gaussian weakening represents lower scores and waves, which is really a kind of negative feedback, and who doesn't like to follow a large number? However, larger values are also prone to more variables and become more difficult to balance, so normally they will not inflate the values.

Something common with both Overload and Gauss nerfs - it is a lot of nerfs combined that make it over the top. But Overload issues deserve their own thread.
The lower max-wave potential is not exactly a negative, if it means a game can/will last less on average. It takes a lot of dedication and time to play Infinitode 2 competitively even for a single level, and there are about 70 of them, and the entry bar is already extremely high - get max research, complete all relevant quests and get trophies, and only then you can start learning the meta, strategies, tricks and think of how to optimize that.
Don't see much point arguing numbers since we have a confirmation they will be improved.
I must say, it was sad to lose 3.2 as the non-Gauss level. Don't think it is bad to force diversity through map design where pure balancing does not succeed. Still hope to see 5.7 without the 2 Gauss-viable sources, would be a very unique level.

Adding onto Alu's point, gauss has the best utility and damage ceiling for normal mode gameplay.

Alu's made the point of the first ability already, but the Third ability is also unreasonably strong. 55% coin generation beats out even the coins tile and is usually leaned towards your primary source of getting coins.

Its level 10 ability is insanely efficient, given that it does % hp damage as well as being a guaranteed stun. The % hp damage is most abused in the rumble to build mdps. You also see stun abuse on a select few bonus levels to squeeze out more time from Overload.

Its ultimate ability is also one of the strongest utility ultimate in the game. Doubling mining time for every enemy it pierces through. Double mining is insanely powerful and if you get up gausses early enough, you can easily get up to 1h+ between multiple miners.

This ultimate ability also directly plays a role in another issue that has been apparently with damage gauss. Due to how much double mining time you get and how much experience you can generate, the second ability allows you to end up with Gausses with over 100% damage.

Even if you take away its first ability, gauss will still essentially be mandatory due to the utility it provides. No other tower in the game can provide the economical advantage, have the same damage scaling, and provide late-game utility as Gauss.

Zihell's suggestion makes the most sense to me at least. Redistribute Gauss' utility to other towers.

I want to bring your attention to ZiHeLL's comment:
https://tracker.prineside.com/view.php?id=2408#c2411

• Gauss gets default 5-10% hp threshold as a gold stat - does it mean that Gauss is no longer able to kill anyone? (except Icy due to the way its armor works)
• Gauss Nanoparticles boost that to 15-20% - do you mean leaving the x2.2 damage multiplier and increasing the remaining HP threshold?
• Gauss Superconductors reduce Fuel/Resource cost, and maybe increase or decrease charging speed (No more extra coins) - Agree here, and I'd move extra coins to Crusher's careful processing ability as it fits it nicely and probably should not become overpowered due to the Crusher's attacking mechanism and its growing price (also this ability is used the least)
• Gauss lv10/Special/Overload unchanged - I'd only make this damage not affect MDPS, because that's not intended (if it actually affects MDPS)
• Some "bad" tower gets the Bonus Coins ability (Cannon, or Multishot...). - I can not agree that Cannon is bad - it is vital at the start of the game and I enjoy using it at that stage. Remember that explosions have received a piercing buff so it is safer not to buff this tower even further, and that's why I've suggested Crusher
• Something can also inherit the mining speed ability from Gauss Ultimate. I.E. Minigun builds microguns near/on miners, that give double mining time for kills. - this one is tricky. I'd leave it as it is for this season but in case everyone thinks that it should be moved somewhere, statistics from this page (https://beta.infinitode.prineside.com/stats/replays.php?count=2000&modes[]=BASIC_LEVELS) can be used to find tower abilities that are used rarely and would benefit from receiving this buff

Also I like this idea suggested in this discussion:

• Make nanoparticles leave around 15% of HP, reduce the damage bonus slightly and debuff all affected enemies with Vulnerability (10-30% extra damage for some time - I believe it makes sense to not make it too high so that it does not fight with Freezing in terms of efficiency). This should improve the efficiency of other towers and should not benefit Instant kill and Killshot, which was the original goal.

I know a solution to all this but it won't come earlier than season 4 and, indeed, there's no time to implement it for season 3.

Alternatively, I can just revert Gauss back to something 1.8.10-ish but will still have to reduce its gap compared to other towers, at least a bit.

• Gauss unable to kill -> yes. If the threshold is low enough by default, it would be possible to use FT Ultimate + no nano Gauss as cleanup, almost as usual.
• Nano massively boosting the damage, but increasing the hp threshhold, that is what I had in mind
• Crusher experience is nice for Gauss itself when there is no opportunity to use XP modifier. It is a very useful buff, but replacing it would be reasonable if XP buff was moved instead.
• Yeah, MDPS affecting Overload is sometimes enough on its own to make Gauss useful. IDK if it has to be changed, but it can be changed.
• The explosion piercing buff is nice and while Missile is in a pretty good place after it, Cannon feels a bit underwhelming. Not enough data to be concrete yet, and some crazy strategy could be found since it can reach 96% piercing. Cannon Ultimate is still very bad though :p
• Probably a season 4 change for the Gauss ultimate, a lot of thought needs to be put into moving such a useful ultimate since it basically forces a tower to be useful.

For now, vulnerability and reduction of nano threshold will do, but I'd also look at Self Improvement (dead ability with XP mod and Overload changes). A middle ground between b202 and b203 damage and resource consumption would be appreciated, I'd imagine. Specifically the revert on the damage research increasing resource consumption, that seems like something that will be a target of research resetting. Detrimental research = not fun!

1. If you must adjust Gauss's blood volume retention threshold: more than 12%, you need to increase the vulnerable effect, if you do not add vulnerable injury, it is best not to adjust it more than 12%.
2. Regarding the high damage bonus of nanoparticles: This also gives him the most serious side effect, unable to kill enemies. This means that Gauss has to cooperate with other towers and cannot be used independently, so I don't think the strength of this skill needs to be measured by the strength of other skills, it is special. Even if his bonus is as high as x3 or x4, the upper limit depends on whether other towers or skills can complete the kill, which is the barrel theorem. In a complete system, the upper limit is only as bad as the worst. At the same time it also affects Gauss's damage/coins, and you always feel that the damage/coins are too high. But in fact, without a tower with such good damage/coins, the game simply won't be able to play for long before it ends (especially on small maps). I can give you a reference value for damage/coins, the B201 version is the limit, if it were lower, there wouldn't be enough economy to build Gauss on a small map - like the B202 version, I didn't upgrade anything but didn't have enough money (or you could boost the economy gain speed). This is the same as the threshold problem, where a mistake in one part of the game makes it difficult to play the rest of the game. You can weaken it, but please don't use the skill strength of other towers as a standard, and please lower the Gauss price. Taken in another direction, this also means that the difficulty of all maps is greatly increased (PPQQ once joked that each map is like playing dev). Speaking of skill strength, the third skill of the basic tower in Endless Mode has a damage expectation of close to x10 (laughs), and at 6.3 of 150 difficulty in Endless Mode, it only takes 8 seconds for the base tower to kill the snake.
3. Regarding the ability of lv10, this is the only means to increase MDPS in the later part of the current version (maps without planes), if you want to cancel it, please add a new means that can greatly increase MDPS.

Perhaps I need to repeat that version 1.8 is already a complete system, and there is a delicate balance in all aspects. That's why I say that if you want to change, you need to overturn the whole thing, because any change in one part can affect the performance of all the others. You think of it as a barrel, and the game's maximum score is the water that the barrel can hold, and each part represents the planks on the barrel, which are of different lengths. The upper limit of the game depends on the shortest plank, and even if you make the longest plank longer, the bucket will not hold more water (of course, the game is abstract and cannot be completely compared with such a concrete concept, but it will actually give you more points in detail). But if you make a plank half as long as it was (e.g. 15% threshold), the bucket will leak and you can add vulnerability to it, which is to fix the bucket, but I think this modification is self-defeating. While more damage appears to be caused by other towers, the root cause is Gauss, and "vulnerable" can be seen as Gauss dealing more damage. Some of your modifications will make the planks of this barrel jagged, and each part will not be able to perform to its maximum strength. I don't think this kind of game is perfect.

While you don't want the combination between the towers to be too strong, but... Because this game doesn't have any towers that can handle all the enemies alone, each tower is good at very different things, and the strength of the early and late stages is also very different... It's better to say that you have to have a combination to play, and the stronger the combination, the more comfortable you will be to play. I'm more inclined to create more combos that are linked to tower skills. For example, the unbeatable combination effect of Burning and Venom Ultimate in Laser Skill 1 in 6.3 is very interesting and powerful. When a player discovers this new way to play, he will be amazed, as will the other combinations.

If you could subvert the whole gameplay in S3, I wouldn't be so long-winded. If you're going to maintain the status quo, the advice I can give is to restore the B201 version of Gauss, which is already a lot weaker than the 1.8 version (much less damage/coins, overload nerfs - less resources and less extra damage. You can't bypass the decay of skill 2 with the base tower (this is the main thing, I can't cultivate T-level damage Gaussian in custom mode anymore, and the upper limit of normal mode is also greatly reduced) The XP modifier is even more drastically nerfed - I hope this modifier will be a little bit back. It's not just normal or endless mode, but even DQ is quite uncomfortable to play). Weakening the threshold to give vulnerability seems to be redundant, and this part of the damage can still be seen as provided by Gauss, which makes the damage that Gauss can deal is higher. There have been a lot of unpleasant changes throughout 1.9, and very few exciting ones - very few things to enhance and too many things to nerf - which is frustrating - I think there will be a lot of players who can relate to me, and even if they don't care about Gauss, there will be other nerfs that affect them

Regarding the ability of lv10, this is the only means to increase MDPS in the later part of the current version (maps without planes), if you want to cancel it, please add a new means that can greatly increase MDPS.

Greatly increasing the MDPS is not something that I ever wanted to implement. A way to greatly increase the MDPS has always been considered a bug.

Many of you insist on a things that are not designed for the game. If you want something to be overpowered, it should be intended and not just because some value has been too high in the past. Some people here are only focusing on the obvious flaws of a game design or its balance, because these things allow them to abuse the game in some way or it is fun for them to reach a higher wave. It is inderstandable that you want some higher numbers, but these numbers must be intended and not a preserved rudiment from the previous version if the game.

I understand what you mean but can we finally agree that I will not preserve game braking mechanics and stuff which conflicts with my vision of the game? I can not make a new balance if you insist on preserving the bugs. If you like them - download 1.8.10 and play it, I'm not going to disregard my ideas only because some OP things were not preserved. It is so obivous - the much higher waves, the much higher MDPS, all this stuff is only possible because of bugs and flaws, and there's basically a single broken mechanic stands behind each of them (which has never meant to be in the game). I would not mind if this thing suddenly makes a game much better and does not have downsides, but higher numbers is not what I consider better, and forced single strategies is what actually makes it all worse. Again, "always use Gauss because it is a core" is not my goal, and considering the whole game has been designed around my goals - something tells me that listening for most of these complaints may actually be destructive for the game.

I will nerf Gauss for it to fit my vision. It won't be a core anymore - only a tower with a much higher damage cap and some unique abilities. I agree to move some of its abilities to some other towers so it is no longer that irreplaceable. I like some ideas suggested here, which should help me balance this tower a bit. But I will remove every single way of abusing MDPS and will make sure all towers except Gauss will not become useless on a higher waves. I can not find a common ground with you here, because this involves preserving things I've always considered to be a design flaws.

1.8 has lasted way too long and I believe everyone has played with Gauss enough.

Forgot to mention - a proper "gameplay core" is something you can choose. A character class (Borderlands), a type of attack you are focusing on and choosing skills for (Diablo) and stuff like that. Something that you can not change provides zero diversity to your gameplay - it is not a core, it is just basically nothing more than an overblown fixed value you have to live with, useless in terms of a game design.

I've made a small article for anyone who wants to understand how I make decisions and what is the final goal of this game:
https://beta.infinitode.prineside.com/?m=game_design