Another round of changes just went live, driven almost entirely by this comment. Thank you — genuinely.
Monster spawn locations — fixed. Bosses now always spawn from the far right edge (no more materializing inches from the wall via an unlucky top/bottom roll). Minion top/bottom spawns also pushed deeper into the field with a minimum 90px distance from the wall. Even surprise-angle spawns give you a beat to react.
Merchants too expensive — prices cut ~40%: Healing Tonic 40g→25g, Sharpening Stone 75g→45g, Lucky Charm 60g→40g. Affordable even on a commander-drained purse. "Automate events" is a good idea I'm still sitting on — might ship as a prestige bonus down the line.
Screen flash spam during swarms — was a real bug. 100+ enemies whaling on the wall every frame kept re-triggering the flash before the previous one faded, locking it into a solid red strobe. Now rate-limited: only re-fires when the previous is nearly gone. Still impactful on first hits, no longer strobing.
Scholar's Mind exploit — 100% broken, you nailed it. Kill one goblin, reset, claim +5 RP, repeat. Fixed: the flat prestige RP bonus now requires at least 1 cleared wave OR 20 kills before it unlocks. Legit runs still get it; kill-and-reset returns zero.
Skills costing gold — agreed. Pulled the one-time equip fee entirely. Skills are now free to equip and free to cast, cooldown-gated only. Research unlocks them once, then swap between slots as your build needs.
Prestige grindy / redoing not fun — Ancestry (new prestige bonus) exists specifically for this: preserve 1/2/3 of your favorite research nodes across the wipe so you don't re-climb the same ladder every time. Still tuning baseline shard yields.
Bonus rounds of polish you'll also notice:
- The war wolf now walks with a proper leg animation (was ghost-gliding before), has double HP (60 → 120), and bards heal it from anywhere on the wall for 2 HP/sec each.
- Range indicators are color-coded per hero class now — archer rings are reddish-brown, crossbow purple, mage green, cleric gold, bard pink. Overlapping rings are finally distinguishable. Bards also show their aura ring (was invisible before).
- Bard chapter got four new research nodes (Double Time, War March, Extended Refrain, Healing Chorus) — strength, range, and wall regen. Fully-researched bard grants +70% fire rate, +55% damage, +90 aura range, plus wall HP regen.
New patch is live on itch. Keep the feedback coming — this is how the game gets sharper.