Upcoming Major Update 1

As predicted, Line Rangers really will be getting a major overhaul by way of additional game modes. These updates will be live on June 19.

In the splash screen it seems to be saying that the team battle mode is the player vs. player mode that was mentioned, but in the notice, it treats Team Battle and Friend Battle differently. Perhaps we will get to pick random people as well as battle our friends (in case some of us out there don't have any friends to play Rangers with!) So I think there is probably a random vs. random and a friend vs. friend mode.

Endless mode is pretty straight forward and I think it will add to giving people something to do while there are no new zones out. I think it'll be something like 1-3 stages for each zone where you battle with that area's set of enemies in a preconfigured formation. It should be interesting and challenging in its own way. What I think will be a nice twist is that Endless Mode will likely diminish the importance of splash rangers. Endless mode by definition does not have an end point, therefore splashing down a tower is a utility that we will not need. And when dealing with a continuous stream of enemies sometimes it is better to focus down on one enemy and get rid of it with a single target nuking ranger (such as Alice, Dumpy, Dwight, etc.) Splash rangers will still be very useful, of course, but maybe just less so.

And finally, items are changing! Following in suit of many other of Line Games, Rangers will soon get the option of an experience booster item. I really hope that it can be bought with a lot of coins and not a lot of rubies because I fail to see why anyone would sacrifice rubies for more experience. It will give the coin currency (especially those out there with millions sitting idle) some more purpose.

The tower repair item will be changed from a healing + temporary invincibility item to just a temporary invincibility item. I guess we better alter our strategies if our tower remains at the health that it was prior to item usage. This brings to light something important though: now you should probably start upgrading that tower health category that we've all been ignoring. Previously, tower repair really did make having loads of tower health unnecessary. You could practically get twice the tower health with this item. After the update, your tower is as healthy as it ever will be and you will just have to protect it fervently the first time.
[Edit: Although now that I think of it, what good will temporary invincibility do if the enemy is already at your front door? As soon as invincibility ends, they are still there killing the 1-2 rangers you can deploy at a time. You would pretty much have to pair invincibility with tornado to give yourself any hope of continuing combat, right? Unless it is invincibility for your rangers...? The verbiage of the notice leaves much to be desired.]

I don't know what "Friend's Home" feature is but if I had to guess, it might be something that gives us a peek into which rangers our Friends have left for us to use when we summon them. Right now it's a crap shoot whether we get 3 good rangers or 3 lowbies. Maybe this feature will tell us things like ranger name, ranger level, friend's playing progress, etc. That would be so helpful, so we can receive the most applicable set of rangers for the stage we are facing!

Anyway, that's all I have for now. This is all the information that was hinted for us. Will update more when I know more.

In the meantime, to prepare for the new modes, maybe we should all brush up on our strategies and plan our defenses for the new game modes! Maybe the new attack speed post will be useful because in PVP, speed does matter! There's plenty to read and learn on this blog. Please use the search bar at the upper left corner or the right sidebar if you're having trouble finding topics. You can also click on the labels at the bottom of each post to find all the posts that relate to that label name.

Player vs. Player Mode?

This afternoon about 200 files were downloaded to the game. A bunch of updated pictures to the area maps and... something about ladders and ranking. Could this mean that a brand new player versus player mode is coming? Will we be able to go head-to-head with other player's teams very soon? This is going to be a huge new thing for the game. It will change the entire landscape and the way that we interpret strengths and weaknesses of our rangers.

Below: Pictures of badges and possibly the scenery for battles between teams?

This comes at a very interesting time in the game. We have a huge exhaustive list of rangers with a wide variety of attributes. And as such, the stages in the game are no longer much of a challenge if you have the most powerful rangers in your possession. I do believe that at this point, Line Rangers is one of the most profitable games in the LINE family, so clearly many people are shelling out the cash for KSM, Ola Brown and friends. Perhaps we only got 1 new area in the last release because development effort was put into working on a ladder mode where the best of the best can match up in a game of skill using those powerful rangers.

Any time a multi-player 1v1 type of play is introduced, my first question is how the matchmaking will be done. Will it be based on player level? Ranger levels? Do we get to pick our team? Do we get to pick our opponent? Then there is the question of rewards. What will be the incentive for players to submit themselves into the pit? Coins? Or some other currency? (Rubies, please!)

One of the things that I think will have to be addressed is team composition for multi-player. It would not be fair if players simply picked a team like Level 80 Hip-Hop Brown, KSM, Dwight, Dumpy and Sorcerer Cony. Maybe it will be an offering of choices, like if you want to do a [5★ vs. 5★] full team battle, or a [two 5★+three 4★] team battle, or pick one of each star rating, or maybe even a 1 ranger vs. 1 ranger solo brawl (lol). Will they normalize the rangers, i.e. if you have a level 70 Warrior Jessica, it will be knocked down to level 50 Warrior Jessica stats, so that anyone with access to that ranger will be battling at a level playing field? Maybe they won't; perhaps they will just take your rangers as-is and let you knock the teeth out of some unsuspecting challenger!

And will items, Thomas and missiles be disabled? Will minerals be regulated to some preset level?

Will there be one ladder ranking for all players internationally? We don't know!

Side note: I wish we could use the NFC-enabled devices to somehow create a cooperative play mode. Your team + a friend's team in a 2 vs. 2 brawl. That would be fun, but I might just be dreaming :(

By the way, before I get too carried away, I want to reiterate that this is speculation based on the files that were pushed down today. It might be this, or it might be something else entirely.

More to come soon...!