A legal, and very satisfying way to make kids on their iPads cry before bedtime

In it's curent state, I am very sad I say I can't recommend it. I always liked all the BTD series, and was really looking forward to playing this, but unfortunately, it is way too predatory with it's monetization system. You earn around 50-300 xp per match per tower, and you need 2000 xp for the least expensive tier 3 upgrades for the towers. I don't even want to look at how much it is for tier 4 or 5. The cash earning is decent given the amount needed, but the xp is way too low. Hopefully they will increase it in the near future, because I really want to be able to play this.

Edit after 1.0.2:

While now the game feels slightly more playable, with village not being as painful as before to level up as before for example, I still think this is slightly far off from what should be done. While you now consistently earn around 200 xp in each of your 3 towers per match, or even more if you only use 2/1 tower and win (unlikely but doable), and temporal buffs longer, it still probably takes around 40 hours just to max ONE tower.
While it's around 5 times less than before (it was around 200 hours according to my estimates), it still is waaaay too slow. I played for an hour and a half only using boat, alch and ninja, all of this while having a 2 hours boost to xp (so xp is multiplied by 2) and only got 1-2 tier 3s per tower. Again, it's definetly better than before, when those 2 hour boost didn't even exist as far as I was aware, but still takes too long. Keep in mind that I ONLY played those 3 towers and in around 15 matches and an hour and a half got around 4k xp on each with double xp active. And the tier 4s are 10k at least, with some up to 20k. Tier 5s are all over 20k, so the amount of grind needed for just 1 tower is really absurd.
I will probably keep playing because I like the actual game, but I really hope they improve the xp rate a bit more, as I won't actually recommend it to someone if that's not done.

monkey

i lost my wife

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This game has fantastic bones underneath it all, but it's overshadowed by some MAJOR issues (listed below). Most of my qualms come from wanting this game to have serious competitive viability and Ninja Kiwi's decisions that hinder such viability. I'm confident the balance and bug issues will be fixed in time. Hopefully in a few months, the game will be playable. But for now it's just not fun :'( Scroll to the end for a TLDR.

1. The EXP system: This idea is a holdover from Battles 1 from a LONG time ago. However, the rate of EXP gain is entirely too small, even after it's been raised multiple times already. I'm over 100 hours into the game and still have not come CLOSE to unlocking all the tower upgrades. Also, locking late game viability behind a thousand-hour grind wall is absolutely terrible for any sort of "competitive" play. Given this game is exclusively PvP, that's not acceptable. Imagine playing Street Fighter for the first time and picking Ryu... but you can't throw fireballs, dragon punch, or hurricane kick until you've played Ryu for 75 hours. Then you still have to unlock all the moves for the other characters too at 75 hours each. Or imagine playing chess but your Rooks can only move vertically till you've played 50 hours and your Queen can only move diagonally backwards until 100 hours in. The reality is that ONLY cosmetics should be locked behind such a MASSIVE grind wall. Anything affecting actual game play should be available once you finish the tutorial. I understand the need to monetize, as Ninja Kiwi needs to eat and keep the lights on like the rest of us... but if they want this to be taken seriously as a "competitive" game then punishing players who can't play 40 hours a week is NOT the way to do it. I'd have gladly payed 20-30 bucks to buy the game with all the towers and upgrades unlocked.

2. Lack of Sandbox/Training Mode: This is surprising since BTD6 and Battles 1 both already have Sandbox mode for testing. How am I supposed to know which towers are good at solving which problems (if they're good at all) if I can't test in Sandbox? Again, this is abhorrent for competitive play. In the modern era, there NEEDS to be something like Training Mode in every competitive game out there. Otherwise the competitive community is seriously gimped.

3. Input Delay: I've played a lot of fighting games and have strong opinions on how netcode should be handled. Ninja Kiwi have implemented a Delay based system for Battles 2. On the surface, it makes sense. If the connection between 2 players is struggling, then put in a minor delay on every input to allow for a "buffer" time to compensate, this is common in fighting games. However, there's been a big push for Rollback netcode in fighting games. Rollback would not really work for a Tower Defense game, admittedly, but when you need to sell 3 farms to buy 5 bomb shooters and upgrade them all to tier 4 and activate their abilities before a swarm of DDTs blow by the screen, that "minor" delay makes it virtually impossible. I strongly prefer the Battles 1 net code that allowed you to micro (buy/sell/target/upgrade/etc) as fast as your fingers could, at the cost of occasional desync'ing issues. Right now you have to prepare for rushes BEFORE they happen, then when they don't happen you're behind. It really limits the "strategy" aspect of the game as very few things can be done as reaction. Everything must be preemptive, leading to very flowcharty redundant game play. Either you have 90% of the defense needed to defend a rush in advance and they don't rush you since already spent the money to defend, or you die because the input delay won't let you micro. UPDATE: The input delay now feels worse with 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 updates. I start to enjoy games as it's no the same dartling meta every game, then I try to boost and count to 12 before it activates but I'm already dead.

I won't even speak about the poor balancing or game breaking bugs here, as it's still a new game and new games take time to fix/balance. NK are people too, and nobody's perfect. I do believe NK is working hard to fix the bugs and balance issues, and the patches they have released so far have all been big steps in the right direction. My real complaints are the decisions they've made that cripple the notion of "competitive" play. Especially when NK mentioned something about potential eSports a while ago.

TLDR
-New game is new, and has new game problems (bugs/balance). I'm ok with that because they're working hard to fix these. (with 1.0.6 they've fixed many bugs and balance issues but now the input delay is WORSE)
-There are several major decisions that hinder competition and suggest a lack of understanding of the state of competitive gaming and ignorance of the struggles of past competitive games.

I hide in the closet, not daring to make a sound. "Are you kidding me? Nothing gets past my bow!" I hear, the distinct sound of two arrows being nocked and fired as the madman continues his killing spree. I cling onto the hope that my friends survived, but I know better. His arrows always find their mark.

I hear his voice again, "I am Quincy, son of Quincy.", but this time it is a little bit closer, my heart begins racing as I hear his footsteps getting louder. "has he found me?" I wonder, shaking in fear. As the handle on the door turns, I am ready to accept my fate, but then I hear the voice of my best friend ring out "Step away from the door!" but it was too late, "You can all have some!" shouts the man, I hear the sound of a bowstring being drawn taunt, and I cover my ears as to not hear the blood curdling scream my friend lets out. This monster is unfeeling, he ensures his shots never kill instantly and lets the blood loss do the rest. I have unleashed this creature upon the world and now I must pay the price. I curl into a ball and cry tears of despair, I hate Quincy, son of Quincy...

1. Place Monke
2. Send bloon at enemy Monke
3. Upgrade Monke.
4. Win

Monke shoot. Monke hit. Bloon pop. Me happy. Life great.

Coming from BTD6, this was kind of a letdown. Admittedly, it has potential to surpass BTDB1 and BTD6, but as of right now, it is a P2W.

The xp and cash rewards from a victory is too little to actually be rewarding and unlock any upgrades Tier 3 and more, making it an incredibly grindy unlock system. This creates a very rigid meta for new players and there won't be much change or variety in early matches. Hardcore fans might not be so bothered by this, and may see it as a reason to play and get better at the game. Also, unlocking a reward chest by winning games can be exhausting for a players who can't win consistently due to oppressive metas.

It's buggy as well, no surprise for a game's initial launch but I'll state mine, and my friends' personal experience for posterity. We experienced a glitch in the final section of the tutorial Against Gwendolin where we had multiple copies of our Heroes but they didn't fire, this didn't affect the result of that battle since it was a tutorial fight but thought we should let the developers know.

Some ideas that might could be implemented to improve the experience for new players:

1) 1 Free tower unlock for each category, so that new players can experiment with different builds, other than Dart, Bomb and Tack as a start. The tutorial's cash rewards aren't enough to even buy a Support tower, and barely get a Magic tower.

2) The tutorial should teach most damage types as it only explains energy damage can't pop purples. New players starting in BTDB2 may not know ice damage can't pop white bloons, explosion damage can't pop black bloons. With the tutorial teaching players how to place towers down, it has the opportunity to show damage types as well.

3) Social battles should still have some amounts of xp and cash rewards, alleviating the starting grind for friends. To mitigate this, social battles don't have to benefit from competitive bonuses like No Lives Lost and First Blood.

This is just my own personal opinion about BTDB2. It is very much still an enjoyable game but it is lacking.