Coming in the next version:
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* The ally minions in the battlefield missions were never intended to be neutral skelebots; that was always placeholder. Neutral skelebots are sentient beings like humans are, and wouldn't just be tossed away in battle if it could be avoided.
** Now new non-sentient robot minions have been introduced specifically for the battlefield missions. They have their own graphics, which makes them also a lot more distinct any player-controlled neutral skelebots that might be fighting alongside them.
** The new robot minions come in two sizes: large and small. The small ones now have 100 base health where they previously had 82 base health. The large ones now have 500 base health where they previously had 82.
** The large ones are also now a lot more resistant to knockback, but only now seed about 9% as often as the smaller ones.
** The large ones are red and come with a 60% fire resistance built in (no elemental weakness like was previously there).
** The small ones are yellow and come with a 60% air resistance built in (no elemental weakness like was previously there).
** The large ally minions no longer collide with the smaller ally minions, and vice-versa, and the large ones thus now move slower. This keeps the whole line of them slightly more condensed (the larger guys standing above the smaller crowd), while allowing for more variance in things like move speed.
** The shots of the large and small robots also now match their color and element. So the red ones do fire element damage, and the yellow ones do air element damage, rather than both doing light element damage.
* Will O The Wisps can no longer be used in battlefield missions, because their presence simply makes things too difficult (not to mention making things look a bit glitchy when your guys start lifting into the air and you don't know why). These are supposed to be freaky denizens of the swamp, anyhow, so making them come out into common battlefields seems like not the best thing even thematically speaking.
* When your character is standing in front of the ally mission base in a battlefield mission, your character now gets healed by the base at a rate of 10 health every 2 seconds.
* Added a new spellgem that you can find in the staging area of battlefield missions, but nowhere else: Battlefield Command Flare
** During battlefield missions, your allies are unable to pass command flares that you place. This lets you group them up and use them as you wish, rather than always having them running off individually. Command flares can't be removed, but expire after thirty seconds.
* To add yet more tactical decisions to the battlefield missions, enemies will no longer drop health orbs while in these missions. You can of course return to your base to heal up, but your allies are at the mercy of whatever health they happen to have, and whatever damage they take.
** This solves the problem of enemies being both obstacle and reward (in the sense of the health orbs being a reward), and lets us focus on balance in a bit of a different way.
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Boy, battlefields feel completely different now with all those changes. Let's put this discussion on hold until you guys can try the new versions of them in the next update (coming out tonight). I think you'll like what you find.
