Hammerspace
 

Hi, I'm BalanceJF, I'm on Technical Leadership and have been around on the team for quite some time. I helped a lot with High Roller and with quite a few battle tweaks since then. I've also been helping behind the scenes on a few things we're gonna talk about today. I wanted to give some insight into the current state of Hammerspace, what the plans are, and what the progress has been like.

The Curious Case of the Long-Awaited Hammerspace

So, where’s Hammerspace?

The short answer is that it’s still likely gonna take us a while, and that we’re looking at trying out some new strategies again.

But since I think it gives good perspective on the state of things and on the future, I’ll spill the jellybeans (good pun) on our current progress with Hammering down on The Space (less good pun):

It all starts with Hype

Hot off the heels of the 1.3 update, the crew was coming up with some big ideas for the game. The bigger these ideas got, the more apparent it became that some core systems needed to be fully reworked. Tacking features onto old code can only get a volunteer team so far before it becomes more work to maintain things than implementing the features themselves. Plus, the experience gained from working with out of date technology and design patterns was really starting to show diminishing returns. We want Corporate Clash to be not only a place for people to express their passion, but also cultivate real life-applicable skills!

The main focus for core rewrites landed on inventories, sparking the project’s name: Hammerspace. The goal was to rework how all items in the game are handled and then add some big, fun content (and don’t worry, the team still very much is excited to deliver big, fun content) on top of that to showcase the superpowers that were unlocked by this new design.

Working on Hammerspace placed a spotlight on many dusty areas of our code that could use a good cleaning. While ideas were being generated, passionate members of our tech team made steps to clear out more and more of this dust. This includes several necessary optimizations to the game’s unseen inner workings and very fundamental features, like the way Toons (and possibly other objects) are loaded into the game, the way levels are handled, and the way basically every single thing a Toon can have in the game is handled (AKA the inventory system). These improvements were inspiring and exciting, and each one potentially led to building more improvements on top.

However, as time went on, a mix of factors led to delays in Hammerspace’s release. Technical designs evolved as limitations in prior iterations were recognized, the personnel of the crew itself was changing at a relatively rapid pace, the scope of the next major update was growing as we realized just how powerful this new inventory system could be, and all of this was happening at basically the same time.

Just a taste

Siyo! It’s Grimm, your local dog Toon and Art Department Lead + Administrative! A state-of-affairs wouldn’t be complete without the art team showing off our work too! I’ll be assisting BalanceJF in the Hammerspace section by giving you all just a small taste of all of the work we’ve been doing on this update. Hopefully this little teaser helps put things more into perspective regarding Hammerspace’s scale and why our faithful tech team is taking their time to make sure things actually work when the update drops. 

When it comes to game development, the art team sometimes has a significant amount of influence on the direction of writing, among other things. A really good piece of concept work may make another department say “hold up, they’re cooking– let’s do this instead!” and suddenly we’ve implemented bowling, boxing, tennis, wakeboarding, archery, Toony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3- 

-Huh? I’m now being informed that I’ve got my game genres mixed up and that none of this is actually being implemented. My bad. 

…But I think I can get away with sneak peeks at some of the work we’ve actually gotten done and how that might have influenced the game’s direction in little ways. Let’s talk architecture! I’ve mentioned it before during chats with the community, but I come from a whole family of architects, so when I departed from high school and went off to college, my thoughts were: “Grimm, you cannot go into architecture no matter what.” 

…And I didn’t! I got a degree in Simulation & Game Development instead…

… And then I joined Corporate Clash and ended up accidentally becoming the on-and-off sole architect on the team for interior, exterior, and environment design. I guess you could say I’m BACK IN THE BUILDING AGAIN.

Honestly? It's not actually bad at all! Aside from pretty much hand-sculpting our architecture pipeline earlier on in my tenure when I was still a scared little rookie, I've discovered that I really, REALLY enjoy area design for games, which is why I was positively jumping for joy when I had the opportunity to design the layout for our new General Stores (Among a few other big things)! I get to show you guys that work today: 

Designing commercial buildings is tricky. The good news is that this is Toontown, and Toons don’t follow building codes, so I don’t need to sweat the legal stuff! (But maybe don’t let the Lawbots see this.) The big battle here was actually creating a layout that considered the one thing everyone does once the wow factor of a new place has worn off: 

Find the quickest way to get in, buy something, and then leave. 

Many, many iterations were made that had to keep this idea in balance with enough space for crowds of Toons, as well as giving our vendors enough space to… uh, vend. Additionally, I’m a sucker for environmental design assisting a character, so I had to make sure the vendor areas actually looked like they were being used! This included calling upon our lovely roster of skilled concept artists to come up with decals and UI that really reflect the tastes and personalities of our new NPCs! 

We have a handful of vendors for you guys, which means a lot of space is needed. In fact, we have enough space in this building that the second floor of this place is gonna be pretty cozy! Perhaps even cozy enough that you might just wanna kick your feet up and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate or a muffin… 

Every inch of this interior was designed with our vendors in mind- even the ramps between floors, made special for a Toon who navigates the shop…

… on wheels! 

And trust me, this place is so nice, you’ll get to enjoy it anywhere you’d like.

Even Daffodil Gardens! 

I know the existence of the General Store isn’t exactly new news though, even if the interior is. That’s why I’m randomly hurling this very suspiciously record shaped building interior at you next.

I’ve heard there’s some pretty batty baselines bumping in here, and the building owner has a pretty neat taste in fashion AND music!

A certain store's interior track composed by Duke Trickyflip

That’s all I can show for now, but I think it speaks for itself that we’ve got some pretty cool things cooking all around. Stay Tooned, you’ll be seeing– and hearing ;]- more about some of this in the future!

Something Small

Dr. Flowergrin/Emmeline here, interrupting for a moment! I'm the Technical Art Director here with some fun news... mostly "fun" if you love naming and sorting things as much as I do, or if you're a content pack creator. A big change that was originally going to begin with Hammerspace is a grand (and gradual) restructuring of the folder structure used for the games assets! This is something that's been in the cards for a while, but with how much work has been done for it, and how nebulous Hammerspace currently is, this is being pushed forwards to start... whenever! 

The current way the assets are laid out is jumbled, arbitrary, and designed for a system that hasn't existed for a while. Utilizing our new pipeline to build our assets, all files will slowly be moved to new folders & given new names following a solid naming scheme. This will improve the Crew's ability to add new assets, modify existing ones, and even just find the location of a particular asset. As we go through and rename, re-export and adjust every file, we're also giving them slight tune-ups. You might find that areas that have been put under a microscope & then put through the asset building pipeline ("pipeline-d", if you will) can have increased texture quality, better collisions, or some small visual touches that weren't there previous! Your shadow might render properly on a surface that it didn't previously, you might be able to stand on a ledge that you'd slip off before...

For content pack creators, this is a change that should make the creation of packs easier, as textures won't be so difficult to find, and will be composed into texture palettes that make more sense, and won't change in the future! The new pipeline also makes it quite simple to add new sprites to texture palettes without sticking them in the middle, meaning that you won't have to rearrange your sticker palettes every patch, I personally promise. If you have thoughts on this whole plan, I'd like to hear them! There will be a channel open in the Discord for that purpose sometime after this blog post goes out.

This will be a slow change, but it'll be worth it! In the future, whenever assets are moved, it'll be mentioned in the patch notes. It'll slowly be area by area, or GUI by GUI, so on and so forth. Keep an eye out for that!

Fast Forward

Hey, it's BalanceJF again. Looking at today, the technical team could weave a fine scarf with the number of loose threads that are left in Hammerspace. Well, I guess the scarf is actually Hammerspace, and the loose threads need to be tied up instead of pulled out, because otherwise the scarf would fall apart and… well, you get the idea.

Our biggest hurdle now is to get enough current crew members in sync with how everything works so we can figure out the last few major technical challenges and fully implement the most recent inventory system design. In turn, though, we’ve had more members of tech really genuinely interested in taking on this task. With every shot we take at trying to turn this idea into a reality, we learn and grow and can take that knowledge into trying again and into developing other parts of the game. We’re closer than ever to reaching a point where our new systems can officially enable some or all of the ideas we have. We may end up rolling things out in smaller batches, but we still are very excited to push the limits of what’s possible with an ancient game running ancient technology, and we’re excited to show you more as we create more to show.

But let’s shift gears (foreshadowing pun) for a moment. Remember that big, fun content that I mentioned was building on top of Hammerspace?

A Crazy Reveal

What's good everybody, it's ya boy Crazy here. I'm the current Game Design Lead for Corporate Clash. I'm joined with Triple Pain, Game Design Director for Corporate Clash, and Mel, Game Designer and QA Lead for Corporate Clash. Today, we're going to show you the update that will change Corporate Clash forever. 

Toontown: Corporate Clash has come a long way to get to where it is today, and there's still a long, exciting road ahead. In ancient times (around 2 years ago), the original vision for the 2.0 update was split into three parts: the current iteration of Hammerspace, an update that we haven't revealed much about yet, and the Taskline rework. Today, we are unwrapping this mysterious second piece of the pie, the Gears and Gizmos (GaG) update!

Gears and Gizmos is a massive update that will make Corporate Clash's battle content truly flourish. It will overhaul the battle system, expand the possibilities of battles, improve their replayability, and much more. Originally, it wasn't in our plans to reveal this for some time because it's a Hammerspace-powered project, and as you learned in the sections above, Hammerspace is still under construction. On top of that, Gears and Gizmos itself is still very much a work in progress. Concepts for this update have been coming together in the background over a span of almost 3 years; and even now, many concepts aren't completely set in stone. As such, most of them don't have completed art and audio assets. We're moving forward with revealing this update for 3 reasons:

• This is part of an effort to be more transparent with the community
• We've had enough implemented concepts to enable internal playtesting sessions here and there since December 2024
• Lastly, this update will hugely affect everyone, so we will want to hear your thoughts sooner rather than later

To accomplish the goals of this update while making the game still feel like Toontown: Corporate Clash, there's a fine line we'll have to tread, but we believe we can strike a good balance with enough time and effort. With that being said, it's time to lock in! We have a lot to cover, this blog post is a doozy.

New Cog Identities

Let's warm up with the Cogs first. To give each grunt Cog (basic Cogs like Cold Callers and Big Cheeses) a more defined identity, we're taking the opportunity to redesign every grunt Cog's moveset and stats with a defensive, offensive, support, or balanced archetype in mind! The existing specialist Cogs will have the same archetype as before. Aside from stat adjustments, some Cogs will also get attacks added, renamed, and/or removed to better suit them. We're also addressing various quirks in the design of some movesets, especially how strong group attacks are in the movesets of every Cog that had them.

You may be wondering, how can grunt Cogs have these varied roles when all they do is use standard attacks with different damage values? Well, let's talk about that.

Cog Signature Moves

In Gears and Gizmos, every non-Boardbot grunt Cog in the game will receive their own brand-new Signature Move. A Signature Move is a unique action that has a chance to be used instead of a normal attack, and that does something more special than just deal damage. They are roughly as impactful as a normal attack. With these moves, they will no longer feel like identical copies of each other with only slightly different damage values in battle. You may find yourself opting to take out a Spin Doctor before he can patch up a dangerous threat, or changing your plans because a Micromanager just gave the other grunts a new assignment!

The New Role of Boardbots

So, if all non-Boardbots have a Signature Move, what's the deal with Boardbots? Well, for this update we plan on having Boardbots completely replace executive Cogs. That's right! Boardbots will now truly live up to their name of being the strongest of all departments. Besides having overall better stats than grunts from other departments, each Boardbot will have a Special Ability and a Passive Ability.

Special Abilities are more impactful than Signature Moves from other departments, but less impactful than manager cheats. However, instead of having a chance to be used and taking the place of a normal attack, if they last long enough to fully charge it, Boardbots will be guaranteed to use these abilities on top of their normal attacks for one turn. Each Boardbot's progress in charging up their Special Abilities is tracked through what's called a Charge Bar. Boardbots have a chance to enter the battle with their Charge Bar already filled up a little, but Special Abilities will take some time to recharge after being used. Passive Abilities are just what they sound like - passive effects that help Boardbots remain a strong presence on the field while their Special Abilities charge up!

In Gears and Gizmos, combat will be more layered, but we still want the complete package to be digestible by keeping concepts fairly simple and having them be gradually introduced, expanded on, and/or have a larger presence throughout progression. For a first example, the presence of Boardbots will gradually rise as you get further into the game. Since buildings full of Boardbots would be a little too crazy, an idea is having Boardbot buildings house Cogs from any department and just have increased chances for Boardbot spawns instead.

Regarding Boardbot managers, the existing ones that you can battle will be moved to other departments that suit their identity better. They were put in the Boardbot department when Boardbots were still about upper management, which is no longer the case after the 1.7 update.

Interns and Seniors

These new abilities are cool and all, but throwing that many of them at players to learn would be a little too much early on. To grease the gears of the learning curve and help control how influential Signature Moves are in battles, we are introducing new grunt Cog variants called Interns and Seniors! Interns are variants of grunts with the exact same stats as normal ones, but without access to their Signature Move, leaving them with only plain attacks to use. Right now, they don't have anything that visually distinguishes them other than their nametag, but that will change later. There are also Seniors, variants of grunts with the exact same stats as normal ones, but with an increased chance to use their Signature Move. Seniors can only appear through some special circumstances. Furthermore, Boardbots cannot be Interns or Seniors.

Toontown Central will have high Intern rates, and subsequent neighborhoods will have gradually decreased Intern spawn rates, meaning Signature Moves will slowly spice up battles more as you progress further. Some battles will also have modified Intern (and maybe Boardbot) spawn rates depending on how much that certain mechanics are intended to be the main focus.

Stat Revamp

Well, under the current balance state, Signature Moves and the new Boardbot abilities won't make much of a splash when in a majority of battle content, it's easy to either completely obliterate several Cogs instantly, or Lure them, then just obliterate them later. So, in Gears and Gizmos, we're aiming for a new game balance where Toons are still pretty powerful, but instantly wiping out several Cogs in one round won't be as common as before. Giving Cogs more of a chance to fight back widely opens the door for more opportunities!

For a more concrete statement, we're giving Toons and Cogs more Laff/health and damage than they have currently, but proportionately, base damage won't be increased as much as the health values. This allows room for the new fancy toys that Toons and Cogs are getting in Gears and Gizmos to have impact without making either side overpowered considering how powerful they can be in the current game. The overall increased scaling also allows us as developers to be more precise with balancing wherever it's needed. We're still working out the right scaling for all of the values - the scaling will likely be smaller than you can see in the images and GIFs in this blog post by the final version of Gears and Gizmos.

We still want the game to be well-paced, so we'll be making adjustments to existing content wherever they're needed. This includes pairing some Gag animations together, lowering the total number of Cogs that spawn in instances like department bosses, and lowering the number of Cogs required to be defeated in tasks.

Level System Revamp

The level systems for Toons and Cogs will be getting significant revamps! Toons' max levels will now be 60 rather than 85, but each level also gives more Laff points, making each level feel more distinct. Naturally, we'll be tweaking the Toon XP system accordingly.

As for the Cogs, managers will still use handpicked stats, but grunts will be able to spawn in much wider level "ranges" than in the current game. Some will even be commonly seen at levels higher than 60. You probably had a "Surprised Raccoon" sticker type of reaction after reading that sentence, but this will make more sense in a bit. In each neighborhood, the level ranges and stats are set up so that you can use your own Toon level to determine roughly what levels of Cogs you're evenly matched with, assuming you're fighting alone. Of course, with the power of friendship, you'll still be able to fry bigger fish. Grunts will use a new formula for health per level that scales much more steadily. Damage, healing, etc. per level will use a new formula involving a per-Cog, per-move multiplier called Potency instead of handpicked values for individual levels. The exceptions are each move's frequency and accuracy, which will be static across all levels.

Instead of each grunt having a minimum and maximum level based on their suit tier, they will have a minimum level and a favorite level. Favorite levels determine what levels that a Cog will spawn most frequently in (hence why "ranges" was wrapped in quotation marks), while minimum levels still prevent high tier Cogs from storming the streets of early neighborhoods. As a hypothetical, if a Penny Pincher has a favorite level of 12 and a Cashbot-heavy street uses a level range of 8-16 for its grunt spawns, you will be very likely to see Penny Pinchers in that street. If a street uses a level range of 48-56, even if it has a high Cashbot spawn rate, Penny Pinchers will very rarely spawn in it.

Gag Trees

What you've read so far about the Cogs probably gave you an early Halloween spook. Of course, it's not just the Cogs that are getting new toys to play with! Let's now shift our focus to the Toons, starting with the Gag Tree system.

While it is nice that the prestige system made upgrading Gags very simple, it's too limiting for a game the size of an MMO that we want to continue to expand on. Also, Toon builds couldn't be very diverse and a lot of good concepts for prestige effects have to be left to cry in a corner because there is only one prestige option for each Gag track. So, we are introducing the Gag Tree system, the evolution of the Gag prestige system (and not a replacement for gardening)!

Some tree nodes will be simple numbers changes, but a majority of them are bonus effects that can influence how you play. The structure of Gag Trees will not be anywhere as complex as skill trees you may have seen in some non-Toontown games. In fact, Gag Trees are pretty much the bare minimum for a skill tree. For each Gag track, upgrades start with a basic trunk node, leading into two branch nodes, and then two leaf nodes for each branch. When you have Gag Trees fully unlocked, you can choose between specializing further into a branch node, or taking two branch nodes, but having no leaf nodes.

Will there be any changes to the Gag XP and Training Point system in Gears and Gizmos?

We're not completely sure what we're going to do with them yet, but ideally we'd like to find ways to make the process of leveling up Gags more interesting without the solution being just reducing the grind even further or removing the Gag XP system entirely.

Gag Pouches

In Gears and Gizmos, Toons will be able to use new equipment, which comes in two forms: Gag Pouches and Gizmos!

Pouches have passive effects: Some with simple numbers changes, others with more elaborate bonus effects, and some even with both. You can only have one Pouch equipped at a time, and both Pouches and Gizmos don't affect your Toon's outfit, so you won't have to worry about your Toon's outfit being ruined just because you want to use a certain build. Pouches in early neighborhoods will have simple passives, and they will get more powerful and tend to be more complex as you get further in progression. At the moment, we have implemented over 90+ Pouches!

Pouches cost no resources to switch. When you switch Pouches, the Tree Nodes and Gag preset you saved while having that Pouch equipped will be stored (which is why they're called Pouches), so the transition from one Pouch to another will be smooth. We may also have an option for Pouches to not store Gag presets and/or Tree Nodes in case you just want to switch to a different Pouch effect but keep other parts of your build the same.

Also, because some of you are definitely curious, Tawney's Totebag is still real, but it doesn't do the same thing as it did in its original teaser from 2 years ago!

Gizmos

IOUs, Counterfeits, Sues, Fires, and Unites will be removed. However, Gizmos will be the spiritual successor to boss rewards - activatable items that can do all kinds of things in battle!

Gizmos can do things like give buffs, apply unique debuffs, provoke Cogs to target you with their attacks, or simply heal yourself. They are not consumable and they have a standard cooldown system. Some Gizmos will be usable during your turn without blocking you from using your Gags. Depending on what they do and how powerful they are, some may also start each battle with an initial cooldown, need extra conditions to be met before being usable, become queued to happen during battle movies, and/or take up an action that's normally reserved for a Gag. While some Gizmos are queued to happen during battle movies, you can't choose to activate them while battle movies are already happening or in real time action rounds like Unites. In that sense, there isn't quite an equivalent to Unites. However, there are some Gizmos that strike a similar chord to other existing department boss rewards. Also, each department boss's action round will get tweaks due to the removal of Unites. 

Gizmos will be obtainable starting at around Daffodil Gardens. We're still figuring out details such as how many Gizmos you should be able to equip at once, how to best integrate these and department bosses into the main gameplay loop, and what things the existing boss rewards may be converted into. At the moment, we have implemented over 35+ unique Gizmos!

Overall, Gag Trees, Pouches, and Gizmos will allow your Toon to embody new archetypes that you couldn't before without having to put yourself (and others) at a strict disadvantage. In Gears and Gizmos, you can live your dream of being a tank, support, and more in Toontown!

Battle Timer Change

With all that we've shown so far about Gears and Gizmos, each battle will require at least a little more thought and time to communicate than before. Generally we don't want the battle timer to place that much pressure on the players, especially as they gather their bearings when this update first drops. So, we are globally increasing the battle timer from 40 seconds to 60 seconds.

New Drops & New Crafting System

You may be asking: Will there be any new drops? How will you be able to get these Pouches and Gizmos? Can I upgrade my equipment so I can get stronger in new ways and keep investing this playstyle I like into later parts of the game? The answer to all three questions involves a crafting system! This new crafting system is separate from the one that's used for Halloween and April Toons, but it isn't very fleshed out yet, so we'll just go over general ideas.

Some existing content will get new cosmetic drops, and the way you obtain some drops will be changed. Currency will still work the same, but drops that use chance-based drop rates will instead be made using materials. This approach has the downside of making it impossible for you to "BIG WIN!!!" and get a rare drop early, but it also has two major upsides: you can basically choose which drops you want from a particular battle and which order you get them in, and bad luck streaks with drops will be nonexistent.

Some Pouches and/or Gizmos will be added to existing sidetasks, and many will involve gathering materials in order to craft and/or upgrade. Gizmos will be designed to naturally scale well enough into late game content, but since Pouches are spread across the whole game, many if not all Pouches will be upgradable. Many of the materials will be involved in more than just one Pouch and/or Gizmo, and some Pouches and Gizmos will require you to gather materials from multiple sources. Sources include Taskline managers, Kudos managers, and even activities like fishing and golf, with each having 1 corresponding material. Gag Shops and/or General Stores may be involved in the gameplay loop of crafting and upgrading, but we don't have a confident answer yet on the degree that they will be involved.

Regarding grinding, we're looking to make the processes of crafting and upgrading fulfilling, but not super lengthy, especially for Pouches and Gizmos since they have direct impact in battles. "Legendary" drops will expectedly take longer to get than "very rare" drops under this system, and there may be a first time clear bonus for materials so you can get a headstart on the drops you want. There has also been some discussion about introducing new types of drops and a new tier of drops that only the most dedicated players will strive to achieve.

100% Gag Accuracy and Combo Damage Removal

In Gears and Gizmos, we're making all Gags 100% accurate. While accuracy has been a staple throughout much of Toontown's lifespan, there are healthier ways that we can give Gags their own identity and keep battles from getting stale when you're running them over and over. Combo Damage is also going to be removed, as it's an unnecessary extra step of an incentive for using multiple Gags together. There will still be many scenarios where you'll want to use Gags from the same track together, even without combo damage; but there will also be more scenarios where you'll want to Mix N' Match (haha) different Gags together.

If Gag Accuracy is Gone, Why Keep Cog Attack Accuracy and Why Make Non-Boardbot Signatures a Random Chance?

In an MMO, a genre where things are expected to get at least a little grindy, there still needs to be healthy doses of variance in the battle system. In most cases, especially in downhill situations, it feels better when your opponents occasionally whiff than when you do. With Gag accuracy - a mechanic that has a chance to say "nuh-uh" despite your best efforts - out of the picture, you also have more control in preventing bad situations from happening since the Cogs are more of the primary source of them.

Downed System

Even with 100% Gag accuracy and the existence of defensive and supportive equipment, there may still be moments where a Toon will be at risk of going back to the playground. So, instead of instantly going back to the playground when you lose all your Laff, you stay in the battle, but you now enter a "downed" state where your Toon becomes sad and their Laff goes into the negatives.

While you're sad, you can only pass or use Gizmos. In order to be happy enough to be able to use your Gags again, you need your Laff to be brought back into the positives. To make it less strenuous for your teammates to get you back in the fight, you take less damage while sad, and you are far less likely to get targeted by Cog attacks. Once "revived", your Toon will have a "Downed Sickness" effect that decreases your damage dealt, decaying over a few turns. The initial damage debuff you get from Downed Sickness increases each time you get downed in the same battle, up to a cap.

The only way a Toon gets booted out of the battle while downed is if everyone on your side of the battle is downed, in which case, everyone on that side goes back to the playground together. At this time, we're not sure how this effect should translate in real time instances such as department boss action rounds. From what we've explained here, does this system seem too lenient or harsh? We’ll be keeping an eye on our social media channels and Discord for comments and feedback on this feature and everything else we're showing here!

Base, Boost, Bonus System

In GaG, there will be a lot of addition, subtraction, and multiplication going around due to the many ways that Toons and Cogs will be able to influence damage and healing. You will want good, digestible visual aids to see how much that buffs and debuffs are affecting damage and healing. To keep things simple, you will also want consistency in how buffs and debuffs affect numbers for both Toons and Cogs. So, we're streamlining this with the BBB (Base, Boost, Bonus) system!

Damage is split up into 3 components: the Base damage of the attack, the percentage-based damage Boosts applied to the attack, and the flat damage Bonuses applied to the attack. The formula for the final damage is just Base, times Boost, plus Bonus. For example, if a Toon's Gag does 100 damage and they have a 30% damage boost, the Gag would deal 130 damage total. If they also have a flat 50 damage bonus, then that is added after the 30% boost to get 180. Also, boosts stack additively instead of multiplicatively (to prevent numerical ladders to the moon, so to speak), so a 30% boost combined with a 20% boost and a 10% boost would lead to a 60% boost instead of roughly a 72% boost. And yes, resistances can also cause negative boosts and bonuses!

But all that math is complicated. It's much more fun to watch the numbers do all the work for you!

The Reworks to Gags in GaG

Accuracy was a major player in defining several Gags and influencing decision making. With Gag accuracy and combo damage gone, Gags will need new identities and new ways to synergize.

Something to keep in mind before we get into the Gag reworks is that Cogs now use Static Positioning, meaning they won't reposition to neighbor each other after other Cogs are defeated. This can influence how you choose who to prioritize in a battle, and it can work to your advantage in some situations!

Also, with all the mechanics we've gone over so far and the Gag reworks we're about to get into, we will be updating the Toontorial to reflect the changes from Gears and Gizmos in a way that tries not to overwhelm players.

Toon-Up

Toon-Up is still your primary healing track, with Cheer buffing incoming healing instead of accuracy. There is also one notable mechanical change. Instead of each Toon-Up Gag alternating between healing one Toon and healing all other Toons, you can now choose the number of targets you heal with any Toon-Up Gag, and the outgoing healing will be divided equally among them!

Trap

Trap has been completely reworked! Trap still deals very high damage, but instead of only being activated with Lure, Trap Gags are activated when enough Gags deal damage to the trapped Cog. At base, they require 3 Gag hits to activate, but this can get higher or as low as 2 depending on the Tree Nodes you have for Trap. A cool thing to note is that in GaG, you can place Traps on empty Cog slots to prepare for incoming Cog spawns, giving a new meaning to pre-Trapping!

The executive damage bonus has been removed, and the Dazed effect has been removed from Trap due to Gag accuracy being removed.

And speaking of Dazed...

Daze

Yeah, some of you may have seen this coming from a mile away.

So, the guaranteed accuracy Lure provides is pointless when every Gag will already be 100% accurate, and group Lure is so powerful that mechanics that exist just to reduce its effectiveness or outright deny it are present throughout the entire game. As such, Lure has been transformed into Daze!

All Daze Gags target 2 adjacent Cogs and apply 2 Daze stacks to each, increased to 3 if you have the trunk node. For any Gag with an even number of targets, when selecting where to aim your Gag, the arrows will point between Cogs rather than at a single Cog. Each time another Gag damages a Dazed Cog, a stack is consumed from that Cog, and the Gag will deal extra flat damage.. If a Dazed Cog lands an attack on a Toon, a stack will be consumed to reduce its damage dealt by that same flat amount. For any attacks that can hit multiple Toons, only 1 stack is consumed, but the flat reduction is split up. The amount that Daze increases/decreases damage is dependent on the level of the Gag. While this is overall a nerf to Lure, playtesting has shown so far that it's still good, and it gives room for other defensive tools to exist alongside it without getting overshadowed by it.

Lastly, Daze Gags don't pull the Cogs towards the Toons like Lure, but we don't have any new Gags or animations for Daze implemented to reflect this change at the moment. Let's move on to everyone's favorite Gag (this is both sarcasm and not sarcasm), Throw.

Throw

Throw will still ring familiar as a reliable medium damage dealer. With Trap and (small spoiler warning, but unsurprising) Drop getting drastic mechanical changes, this leaves Throw with a more distinct purpose - it's now the only instant single target damage dealer!

Splash

Squirt has been renamed to Splash, but other than that, it's still the low damage, support focused track that we're all familiar with. The Soaked effect is still needed for Zap, but since Gag accuracy has been removed, Soaked no longer reduces Cogs' dodge chance.

Zap

Zap is still a multi-target Gag track that deals strong, uneven damage to Cogs with any "Soaked" effects inflicted by Splash! Mechanically it works the same as before, but things might get pretty interesting depending on the Gag Tree nodes you have for Zap.

Sound

Sound has been moderately reworked! It still deals evenly split damage to all of its targets (with 1 possible exception), but instead of always hitting all Cogs, the number of targets and damage dealt depends on the Gag Tree nodes you opt into in the way you'd expect. Encore has been renamed to Fortissimo, as its effect now makes you take less damage instead of buffing your damage. The Winded effect has also been removed from Sound as it's no longer needed to keep Sound usage in check.

Drop

Drop still deals heavy damage, but instead of having low accuracy, it's delayed by 1-2 turns depending on the Gag Tree nodes you've opted into. Like with Trap, you can place Drop Gags on empty spaces to prepare them for incoming Cog spawns!

Burn

Burn Gags have...

Wait, what? Burn Gags???

Hi! I'm CheezedFish, you guys might have seen me running around in game as Sir Tubby Cheezyfish, and I am here to interrupt the flow of this blogpost! With all of these absolutely bonkers changes to the fundamentals of battles, we at the Corporate Clash Crew thought that it would be pertinent to bring back an idea for a Gag track I had proposed years (going on maybe 6-7 years) ago. So first, an explanation.

Burn is a two target Damage over Time (DoT) attack track. Burn gags will be targeted between Cogs. When used, both Cogs will take an initial damage hit that isn't amazingly powerful, but nothing to scoff at either. They will also be inflicted with a DoT status effect that will deal extra damage at the end of the turn and for the next 2 turns. When all that damage is added up, Burn is the strongest Gag in terms of pure damage output. They lend themselves to be quite useful in manager fights and fights with a lot of tanky Cogs that are not easily destroyed in a few rounds.

The Spicy Pepper Gag!

Burn Gags are played between Zap Gags and Sound Gags in the Gag order. Using a Splash Gag on a currently burned Cog or using Burn on a currently soaked Cog will reduce the DoT turns by 1, but with certain tree combos, this might actually be beneficial!

I don't want to go too crazy in spoiling the mechanics of the new Gag track, I just want to get the fundamentals in so you guys can get a general idea of what to expect!

Back to your regularly scheduled blogpost!

Manager Rebalancing

With the entire battle system being completely uprooted from the ground up, we will need to rebalance every single battle in the game. Besides the inherently required scale-ups, some won't need more than a few numbers adjustments and some may only need a few removals/changes for mechanics that interacted with things that no longer will exist in GaG. However, there is a decent chunk of battles that we will take the opportunity to rework. We will rework some less popular kudos managers such as Multislacker (again), Deep Diver, and Treekiller, while also giving a lot of love to some of the more neglected instances, such as the taskline managers and the facility managers. We will also be removing the random buff gimmicks from the battles that will no longer need them to promote run variance, likely with Mouthpiece as the exception. For reasons that you will probably catch onto quickly if you know how these battles work, Pacesetter, Chainsaw Consultant, and to a lesser degree, Prethinker will also need some changes.

Battle Editor

Hey there, I'm Travis. I'm not very active in the community so you may not know of me, but I've been behind most of the battle code rewrites that have happened over the past 5 years.

The Battle Editor, in short, is a in-house tool that I've developed with the goal of making battle development as streamlined and efficient as possible. To reach this end, all the custom battle code needed to be changed into a format which can be edited dynamically, meaning that not only did the entire battle system need to change to accompany this format, but every battle in the game needed to be ported over to this new system. I believed that the benefit would outweigh the cost, and through developing Gears and Gizmos with several developers using this tool up until this point, I would find this to be overwhelmingly true.

Gone are the days of needing to load up 4 clients into the game to test a single battle change, being replaced by a single "headless" client which does all of the heavy lifting for you. This headless client (not connected to any server code) has all the faculties of an actual battle, with a *ton* of configuration settings. By default, it will start with 4 endgame Toons in the first Cog round of the VP, but everything about this can be changed. The Toon levels, Pouches, Gizmos, as well as the Cog battle itself.

The actual editor is a submenu of this client which contains the data of everything pertaining to battles in Corporate Clash. Everything can be edited within this menu, and any changes made are immediately applied upon restarting the battle. While having programming knowledge helps the learning process, this tool can ideally be picked up and used by anyone on the team!

In this example, the damage debuff of the Ink Drain status effect was tweaked.

To conclude this section, the Battle Editor is an investment into the future of Corporate Clash. For as long as we continue to develop new and exciting battles, this tool should help expedite and improve the development process for years to come.

How will Ubers fare in GaG?

Some of you may be wondering if we'll be bringing back Ubers in GaG, and we have an unfortunate answer - Ubers will no longer be a feature in GaG. Existing Uber Toons will be automatically converted into normal Toons, setting their maximum Laff to what it would be without their hard Laff limits. To honor and commemorate their long legacy, each Uber Toon will get a very special, exclusive furniture item. Please keep in mind that if you re-spec an Uber Toon before the launch of GaG, it will not be eligible to get the exclusive commemorative furniture item. This isn't good news, but it's best that it's delivered sooner rather than later. We're well aware of the gravity of this decision, and we would like to dive more into how we came to it.

Ubers were a challenge run holdover from the original Toontown Online. They utilized the game's mechanics in a particular way to build up a Toon that could show that even lower-Laff Toons could take on bosses such as the Vice President. They were made an official feature in Corporate Clash during an age where it still carried over a lot of DNA from Toontown Online and had little-to-no inherently challenging, permanent content of its own. There was sound reasoning for the decision to remove the ability to create new Ubers when Hires and Heroes was still the next major update. Many players didn't like Ubers as a concept, and Corporate Clash's design was going in a direction that doesn't mesh very well with Ubers.

Force respec-ing Ubers might have been too premature at the time, especially with the hindsight we all have now, so it's very understandable why that decision wasn't chosen at the time. Unfortunately, lingering in the middle ground has made the situation increasingly murky for all things regarding Ubers over the years. They still exist as an official feature, yet new Ubers can't be created. This caused a lot of confusion and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) for newer players, and only continued to sow anxiety and discourse in the community. There's also a substantial amount of challenging, permanent content, which eventually there will be more of, but many of which that already don't mix well with Ubers. This situation is unpleasant in multiple angles and the bleeding will only get worse the longer it stays this way. For a while now, the happiest option the community could take was just accepting the situation as it is, and trying to get the most fun out of it as they can.

There are a ton of things we could do to attempt to make Ubers more viable and/or liked in GaG and beyond, but every possible path that could be taken to directly help them still falls into at least one of these points:

• Doesn't completely address the issue of Ubers still getting stomped by randomness that players can't and shouldn't fully control
• Doesn't account for if there's more than 1 Uber in the battle
• Contrives game mechanics too much just for the sake of Ubers
• Causes major tolls in game balance and design
• May not make them feel like Ubers anymore. Some Uber players may not want the game to cater to them, difficulty is the point of their Toon and they would prefer to play with the hand that they're dealt

With all this considered, we wholeheartedly believe this decision is for the best of the game's health in the long term. Toontown: Corporate Clash doesn't have a joyful path regarding Ubers no matter how things could have been taken from here, and this decision was not easy. While these won't quite scratch the same itch as traditional Ubers, Gears and Gizmos has the tools you'll need to build a Toon that has a risky and challenging playstyle, just with less extreme stipulations than Ubers. Of course, we are also not stopping players from making unofficial Uber-like challenges; the game will just no longer have them as an official feature. We understand that some of you have deeply enjoyed and formed communities around Ubers, and we acknowledge that there have been many incredible feats done with them over the years that required immense skill, dedication, and time. We hope that you understand, though, why they will no longer be an official feature in Gears and Gizmos and beyond. If you're worried about time, we'll let everyone know in advance when Gears and Gizmos is almost ready.

Howdy, it’s Grimm again! I just wanted to help wrap this post up by thanking everyone for their patience with us as we find our groove. For a lot of us, development like this is a major learning experience, and we’re definitely earning that EXP. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, it’s been extremely motivating to see how much the development shifts have gotten the crew into a creative frenzy, and that’s something I’m hoping will last for a good while. I cannot express enough how proud I am of everyone working here, and I cannot WAIT for them to be able to show off MORE of the incredible work they’ve been doing once we have it in a place where it’s shareable. 

I hope everyone continues to enjoy Corporate Clash and all of the time and love we’ve collectively poured into this project! We certainly wouldn’t be here without our community. 

...Before I sign off though, I've been getting a sudden increase in Toon junk mail to my mailbox. I didn't even know newspapers were still delivered! I don't really know what I need 200 copies of the latest news for, so I'll leave a stack of these with you all, I suppose. (Please take them. Please.) Consider it a gift from all of us on the Clash Crew.