In 1.1.4 we asked you to share anonymous statistics, and promised that the next balance patch would be built on them. This is that patch. 674 runs came back, and they showed us three things we would never have guessed on our own: Endless runs die rich, many runs bleed out long before they actually lose, and three rewards were being refused almost every single time they appeared.

Endless

• Your gold finally has somewhere to go. The statistics were blunt about this. A typical Endless run ends holding more than six thousand unspent gold - roughly seventeen towers' worth - with every tower already at level five and most build spots still empty. Your income keeps multiplying; the number of towers you are allowed to field never moves, so from the middle of the run the gold you earn stops being able to buy anything. From wave 16, and every six waves after that, the limit on every tower type you already have goes up by one - six times over the run. Towers you have not unlocked stay locked: unlocking is still what the Help rewards are for.

New wave types

Three more join the four already in the game. As before, they reshape a wave rather than simply making it bigger, they never land on a boss wave, and the banner tells you which one is coming before it arrives.

• Legion. The entire wave is a single breed. Whatever that breed resists, all of them resist, so a defence built around one kind of damage will feel it.

• Crescendo. The wave opens slowly and winds up, ending more than four times faster than it began. Clear them early, or the tail of the wave arrives all at once.

• Blood Price. Anything that reaches your base costs you twice as much, and every kill pays half again as much. A wave you can hold is a payday; a wave you cannot is expensive.

New

• Call the next wave early. During the break between waves, a button on the incoming-wave banner pays you gold for every second you skip, and tells you exactly how much before you press it. Boss waves are excluded. Trading preparation time for gold is a decision the game never used to let you make.

Balance

• Stonewake Village is easier. It was the wall of the campaign: more than a third of attempts ended in defeat there, far more than the mission before it or the one after. Its waves are weaker now.

• Whispering Fields is easier. Defeats piled up on the stretch before its final boss, where it was quietly tougher than the mission that follows it. Its waves are weaker now.

• The selling rewards are worth taking now. Blessing of Thrift, Quartermaster and Sellout were the three least-taken rewards in the game - offered hundreds of times and refused almost every time, because the ordinary refund was already close to what they promised. Blessing of Thrift now returns 90 percent of what you paid, Quartermaster returns all of it, so moving a tower costs you nothing, and Sellout sells for 160 percent.

Coaching

• A new tip for runs that are bleeding out. The statistics showed something we did not expect: players who lose Stonewake Village and players who win it have the same gold and the same number of towers. The only difference is base health, and it is already visible by wave 5. Losing runs are not poor or under-built - they are leaking from the opening waves and cannot see it happening. If your base falls to two thirds of its starting health in the first ten waves, the game now says so, and points at what usually causes it.

Every change above came out of runs that players chose to share. If you have that switch turned on, thank you - it is the entire reason this patch exists. And as always, if something feels off, tell us on the forum.