EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

October 09, 2026

EpicDuel is back online with new features, new balance changes, and more!

Boss Buddies

Bosses that you are forced to fight with an NPC ally after meeting mission requirements now allow you to challenge solo.

• Dravax the Harbinger
• Saeva Lionhart
• The Endless
• Alydriah
• Edgar Boothe
• Kartherax
• Chairman Platinum

This update also shifted hundreds of lines of reduntant boss code into server-driven functions. This is a good thing because previously, if we wanted to add a new boss, it had to be added to a number of places in the server and client code, bloating the code needlessly.

Balance Changes

• Cores:
  
  • Deep Plague: Triggered by clicking on core slot after application instead of basic strike. Max dmg → 140% 
  • Botanical Wrath: Costs 100 → 80 Energy
  • Radiation Burn: 15% chance → 35% chance to reduce melee attacker's def/res by 15%
  • Darkeater's Overcharge: Spend 110 HP to mini rage & destroy target's armor for 1 → 2 turns
  • Botanical Infestation: Costs 90 → 0 Energy; Reset target's Rage and restores 40% -> 50% HP from damage
  • Astral Projection: 50% → 60% dmg stolen to Energy
  • Frost Aura: Buff Aura to -40 energy reduction ?????????
  • Wolf's Fury: Uses: 1 → 2; 3 turn cooldown
  • Frozen Fist: Deal 105% primary damage increasing by 5% per round, 140% max
  • Phase Shift (Primary/Gun/Aux): Inflict 100% → 105% damage of the opposite type; Uses: Unlimited + 2 turns cooldown(Gun and Primary), 3 turns(Auxiliary)
  • Screaming Soul Spears: 2 → 3 turns; 80 → 100 energy cost
  • Hatchling Rush: Attack same as primary damage type for 100% lowering all healing effects by 20% → 30%. Hatching Rush P/E and Minor Hatchling Rush P/E consolidated.
• Robots:
  
  • Botanical Borg: Special's Defense ignore 25% → 27%
  • Lionhart's Avatar: Special grants 60% → 100% Rage to all allies
  • Technomancer Hexabot: Special increases effectiveness of poison by 25% → 50% for 3 turns 
• Skills:
  
  • UA Energy Shield(Tactial Mercenary): Removed Energy Drain, increases Deflection Chance by 15%

Bug Fixes/Changes

• Cyber Yeti P/E: Skills were not properly set into cooldown.
• Nightmare CactusChan: Charon's Obol could deflect High Noon damage for a quick skill. This has been fixed. Best Times from players who took advantage of this will be reset. Also, Delirium would not be blocked be Charon's Obol as it wasn't setup as a debuff. This would cause the affected player to timeout if they tried to use a skill. It is now labeled as a debuff.
• Charon's Obol: Max reflected damage capped at 1000.
• All damage-reflecting skills capped at 1000 to pre-empt possible future interactions like this.
• Azrael's Will: Set as debuff (blocked by Charon's Obol).
• Text in PMs and Faction Chat can be highlighted and copied/pasted.
• Your character's language preference in Settings is now saved, even after you clear your cache.

Epic Downtime

Last night EpicDuel was down for about 9 hours, starting after the midnight restart. In some ways, this takes me back to the bad old times. EpicDuel used to crash at least once daily, even before the AE-fueled player influx. Titan and I would wake up every day (when we remembered to sleep) not knowing if the servers would still be alive or not. It was a bad time then, but it's even worse now that my ancient, decaying body is not as resilient to sleep deprivation as it used to be. 

In this case, the problem was a pesky daily job that was stuck. EpicDuel has a list of jobs it runs every day like awarding daily achievements, resetting the daily leaderboards, choosing a new NPC bounty, etc... If any part of the job gets stuck, the process locks up and the game can't sustain regular play. I identified the problem, but couldn't do anything about it (I'm a game lead, but the council does not grant me the rank of network admin). As of this writing, the problem seems to be resolved, and I've added new failsafes that should prevent something like this from happening in the future. For the sake of my sanity, I certainly hope so!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 05, 2026

Waiting for Battle Fix

After careful investigation into complaints of long and/or inconsistent queue times, we believe we found a solution: Every time someone new joined the queue, it would shift the queue counter for those already in it. This means that under higher server traffic, queue times would be higher for seemingly no reason. This bug was difficult to recreate in a dev environment with much less traffic, meaning it took quite a while to isolate and diagnose the cause. This update is designed to fix the maximum the queue times for 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut battles so it should never take longer than a minute to find a battle at most.

Balance Changes

• (DA) Smokescreen: Scaling 3.3 -> 4.0 (at 140 tech with this change Smoke value goes from 57 -> 50)
• (UA) Smokescreen: Scaling 7.5 -> 9.3 (at 140 tech with this change Smoke value goes from 23 -> 20); +1 dex/def for every skill point allocated
• Plasma Rain: Additional dmg 7% of max HP-> 5% of max HP
• Artillery Strike: Additional dmg 7% of max HP-> 5% of max HP
• Double Strike / (PA) Double Strike: Reintroduced Dex scaling; 1% damage per 6 Dexterity.
• (EA) Double Strike: 1% damage per 9 Dexterity.
• UA Bunker Buster: Lifesteal 20% -> 25%
• Char's Revenge: Adds +100 damage to regular Primary attacks against the Dragonoid Brain. This skill was actually no working at all, but functionality was restored for this update.

Another One (in a Million)

Our battle log highlighted another winning of the One-in-a-Million achievement. This time it's a 1v1 match of Photo vs Fairy Bread with Fairy Bread emerging victorious! All participants in a one-in-a-million battle are highlighted, not just the winners!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 02, 2026

Added to Thalyssa

• SteamTech Arsenal P
• SteamTech Arsenal E
• SteamTech Bazooka P
• SteamTech Bazooka E
• SteamTech Artillery P
  • SteamTech Cannon P: Rain down physical attacks from a hovering airship; 20% defense ignore.
  • SteamTech Blast P: Deal more damage based on how much EP you have left, up to 120% for 0 EP.
• SteamTech Artillery E
  • SteamTech Cannon E: Rain down energy attacks from a hovering airship; 20% defense ignore.
  • SteamTech Blast E: Deal more damage based on how much EP you have left, up to 120% for 0 EP.

Added to Alonzo Harris

New!

• Ghoul Cannon 2018 CC 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2018 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2018 CC 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2018 2026

Returning!

• Stun Cannon CC 2026
• Stun Blaster CC 2026
• Stun Cannon 2026
• Stun Blaster 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2019 CC 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2019 CC 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2019 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2019 2026

Balance Changes

• Revenant's Wall (Armor): Increase Resistance by 65% for 3 -> 4 turns.
• Hardened Armor: Damage Reduction 35% -> 30%; Added 30% damage reflection.
• Anubis Incantation: Warmup 1 -> 0; Detonates for 67% of targets current energy
• Energy Harvest
  Deal 85% -> 100% damage, stealing 20% HP and 50% Energy, disabling melee attacks for 1 turn.
• Hunters' Eradication: Remove target's armor (1 turn), target's sidearm (2 turns) and auxiliary (3 turns).
• Saw Strike P/E: Rip through 25% -> 30% of your target's defense with a 20% crit chance.
• Underclock: Attack for 85% -> 100% damage and increase target's cooldowns by 1.
• Whiteout: Deals 100% -> 110% damage
• Titan's Shroud / Titan's Shroud (NPC) / Force's Shroud: Now only increases the chance you will block an incoming attack and no longer affects your opponent's chance to block your attack. Removed Damage Reflection.

Critical Change

Critical strike formula reverted to remove to the defense-ignore cap, but reverting entirely to the formula earlier in the year is not idea as it contained many blind spots that produced inaccurate results. People were mostly used to the old formula since it was in use for so long that nobody thought anything of it. I'll share some simulated scenarios below to clarify the differences between the old and new formulas.

Classic early 2026 formula: damagePostCrit = grossDamage − critAdjustedDefense, no clamp on ignorePercent.
Current new formula: damagePostCrit = damage + defenseIgnored, ignorePercent clamped to 0–100.

Simulated Scenarios: grossDamage = 1000, target Defense = 500, base ignorePercent = 30% (no crit-ignore gear unless noted), attacker level = 40 → critMinIncrease = 56.

Results:

1. Identical. In most cases, you will never notice the change (100% damage, nothing else going on).
2. This is the NPC Defense core bug that was fixed by the new formula. The core is worth 400 damage reduction on a normal hit (500→100), but Classic's crit comes out exactly the same as #1's (650), totally ignoring the core. Current correctly shows a 400-point difference (650→250), matching the core's actual value.
3. / 4. — Classic's crit damage is the same 650 in every scenario, regardless of the skill's own damage%. Classic's crit output never changes unless grossDamage or Defense change. It's blind to everything else in the pipeline. Current scales appropriately: a 130%-damage skill crits harder (950) than a 70%-damage skill (350), proportional to their actual power.
5. Combining the core and a 130% skill, Classic still lands on 650 (same constant as every other scenario) as it ignores both modifiers. Current shows 550, correctly reflecting both.
6. With enough crit-ignore gear stacked to push raw ignorePercent to 120%, Classic's critAdjustedDefense goes negative ((1-1.2)×500 = -100), which flips the subtraction into an addition, and the crit does more than full gross damage (1100, exceeding the 1000 raw hit entirely). Current's clamp caps ignorePercent at 100%, so the worst case is "crit ignores all Defense" (1000). It can never exceed the hit's own gross damage.

Net Result: Classic's crit number is structurally disconnected from key elements that comprise a hit's damage, and only reacts to grossDamage and Defense. The current formula's crit number tracks the actual hit including modifiers. Classic may have "felt" correct due to familiarity, but by ignoring key modifiers it was actually inaccurate.

Other Changes

• Battle engine now supports limits for core uses beyond 1. Skill button tooltips will also show remaining uses for skills with multiple uses in battle.
• Rage start bonus: 30% in 2v2 → 35%, 20% in all other modes → 25%,
• NPC Rage enabled only for 1v1 and 2v2 battles. To prevent change from overpowering NPCs, their Rage rates will be 50% less than human rates. This change was made because NPCs have extremely low win rates against humans in 1v1 and 2v2 (only 5% in 2v2) and even worse outcomes with a human partner in a 2v2 with 2 humans vs 1 human, 1 NPC. This change should help human players who pair with NPC partners as well as making battles less predictable.
• Formula information including base values, max values, and divisors added for Block, Deflection, Critical, and Stun tool tips.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 29, 2026

When one bug is fixed, more will take its place. When I fixed Lotus Petal, I added extra measures to make sure cooldowns were more strictly enforced. Because some robots like Gamma Bot and Mini Rex have variations that reuse data from other bots, an unforseen consequence of this fix was that cooldowns would fail to trigger for those bots. For example, when you click a skill for Infernal Android PxE, the game thinks a skill for Infernal Android P should be in cooldown. Since that button isn't in your inferface due to you not currently using that bot, the cooldown cannot trigger.

I've combed through the hundreds of robot skill entries and I believe I've fixed all the problematic bots. I'm sorry this happened, but this is simply and inevitability with such a broad change to an integral system like cooldowns, and there is simply no way to test all 200+ robots in the game at a pace quick enough to surface these bugs before an update.

Additional Fixes

• Tactical Reload / Tactical Reload (Auxiliary): Expected behavior restored. This was broken for the same reason the bots were broken. These skills are exceptions to normal cooldown rules so they had to be accounted for.
• Brace: Cooldown removed. This cooldown appeared as part of the broad cooldown change. Again, this was because Brace was always an exception to rules and standardization "broke" it's normal behavior.
• Retrain/Level Up UI: The + and - buttons have been realigned with the corresponding stats. When I rearranged the UI, I didn't account for the necessary scale change to the buttons. Generally, the game's UI just needs more breathing room, but that's a broader change for another time.

Added to Kraggor

When testing the robots, I noticed that the Pyro Fly and variants were not sold anywhere due to being seasonal. Since robots have direct impact on balance, they should not be so restricted. Therefore, I added non-rare versions of the Pyro Fly bots to Kraggor, following the same precedent set with the Yeti bots.

• Pyro Fly
• Plasma Fly
• Infernal Fly
• Magma Fly

Tags: Nightwraith

September 28, 2026

Balance Change

Tremor Blast/Techstalker Tremor/Telekinesis/Saevussax Evisceration/SteamTech Grenade:

• Descriptions updated for displayed duration to match actual duration.
• These skills will reduce the chances of the afflicted player to block incoming attacks to 0%, and the chance that they will be blocked by anyone they attack to 30%.

These skill were granting 100% chance the person debuffed by them would be blocked. This was found to be too powerful, but these skills have worked this way for quite some time. Often we'll change a skill as a bullet point in a balance update, but because the skill isn't in the current meta, it will be ignored until someone finally tries it out and learns it's actually the most OP thing ever. That seems to be the case here, but I didn't want to update without a better solution to a larger problem with similar skills.

We've always faced a challenge with probability-altering skills as the impact is hard to *feel* over the course of a duel unless they're incredibly strong. Probability being what it is, even a large boost might not yield the expected results due to repeated bad rolls. Also, multiplicative passives tend to be much less impactful for evenly-matched players. If your block chance is 2%, then a 50% multiplicative boost is only +1. Additive boosts can be more impactful across all matchups, but risk being overpowered.

To finally address this, after 17+ years, I've added Block/Deflection/Stun chances to the stats page.

Probability Display

I've added the ability to finally see probabilities in the stats page. Block/Deflection/Crit/Stun will display the offensive values (i.e. chance that your target will block you).

Stats page now display's the player's Block chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's Deflection chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's Critical chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's base Stun chance for each opponent.

To view your own chance to block an attack, deflect, etc... view the stats page of your opponent(s).

I'm not 100% happy with the current implementation, but I wanted to get this feature in to enable transparency as quickly as possible. The current presentation will likely change once I settle on a more intuitive solution.

Other Changes

Tired of tracking cooldowns of everyone in battle in your own head? Well, you can put that scrap paper away and relax a little bit because cooldowns and warmups are now visible on the stats page of all human characters in battle.

Finally, Azrael's Borg Heart Attack and other skills that diminish buffs now affects Lotus Petal.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 25, 2026

This week the seas were rougher than usual on Delta V as we battled and finally defeated the pesky Lotus Petal bug! It turns out, this bug didn't have much to do with the skill at all! In fact, the cooldown error was due to viewing an NPC's, or another player's stats page. That caused the game to mistakenly target one the NPC's skill buttons for cooldown instead of yours so the skill put into cooldown by Lotus Petal would never go into cooldown. The self-correction would also fail because the game was trying to correct a button you didn't have. With this bug fixed, we'll leave traces in for another week to make sure the bug is 100% fixed (sometimes fixing a bug creates another one...or 2...or 20).

Even with all that, we were still able to release some fresh content for ye land lubbers!

Thalyssa's Bounty

Visit Thalyssa in the West Naval Yard for the latest Talk Like a Pirate Day gear!

• SteamTech Tank
• SteamTech Tank CC
• SteamTech Airship
• SteamTech Airship CC
• SteamTech Sword P
• SteamTech Sword E
• SteamTech Blaster P
• SteamTech Blaster E
• SteamTech Grenade P x25: Grenade that confuses target, lowering Crit, Block, and Deflection chance for 4 turns.
• SteamTech Grenade E x25: Grenade that confuses target, lowering Crit, Block, and Deflection chance for 4 turns.

Next week will be the grand finale of our Talk Like a Pirate gear, and we saved the best for last!

Added to The Challenger

Missed the Battlepass? You're in luck, because The Challenger has added Anubis to his collection. You have another chance to get one of the best anti-NPC bots available! 

• Anubis Incarnation P
• Anubis Incarnation E

Bug Fixes/Changes

• Skills set into cooldown by Lotus Petal would sometimes not enter cooldown state.
• PMs no longer hidden behind the NPC boss leaderboard
• NPC skill buttons still showing in your Inventory after you die
• NPC skill tooltips no longer use your stats and buffs to reflect skill values.
• Not a bug, but we added a message whenever you equip a core to an item notifying you that equipping a core removes its sellback value. This should clear up confusion when people try to sell back a core after equipping it and notice it has no sellback value.

Tags: Nightwraith