EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

November 15, 2024

As Gifting 2024 approaches, we are busy preparing content for the big day while updating with some crucial balance changes.

Faction Slot Increase

By popular request we've increased the Faction slot limit from 18 to 20. We have the capability to go higher, but we'll wait and evaluate the response before going higher.

Balance Changes

Thrown Shot : Activates at 35% HP. This is a different threshold from Critical Health (30%).
Crimson Offering : 350 energy -> 300
Infernal Offering: 360 energy -> 310
Hybrid Armor: Max 20% Defense / Resistance -> 15%; starts at 6% at level 1 and goes up to 15% at max level
Mineral Armor: Max 33% -> 25% Defense; starts at 7% at level 1 and goes up to 25% at max level

Coming Next Week!

New Epic Supporter Gifting Achievements

With next week's update, we will update the Epic Supporter 2024 to a special new achievement for the Gifting season, Epic Gifting Supporter 2024 which will be available with the 10,000AP Packages. The 20,000 AP package will come with the new Leg. Epic Gifting Supporter 2024 achievement. These achievements should be exciting for rating point hunters who have already maxed out the 2024 achievements.

Please note: This will only go into effect after the update next Friday! If you buy before then, you will not receive the new achievements.

Additionally, so those who want to support EpicDuel, but cannot afford the largest Varium packages, we're introducing a new evolving achievement to recognize your support: Gifting Supporter 2024. This achievement can be earned by purchasing any 4,000 AP Varium package or higher.

Battlepass Rares Return

Next week, we will also return Battlepass rares that were released this past year. You will be able to visit the Challenger to browse the stock of any items you've missed. We will also add the Battlepass hairstyles to the style picker. As before, styles on the free Battlepass will be available for Credits and Enhanced styles will be available for Varium only.

Seasonal Rares Return

In addition to the Battlepass rares, all seasonal rares will also return next week! This will allow you to get a jump of filling out your item collection before the Gifting crowds arrive!

Tags: Nightwraith

November 08, 2024

New Darkon Weapons!

Visit Darkon for an expanded inventory of new limited-quantity weapons!

• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator P
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator E
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator CC P
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator CC E
• Darkon's Debris Edge P
• Darkon's Debris Edge E
• Darkon's Debris Edge CC P
• Darkon's Debris Edge CC E
• Darkon's Debris Lance P
• Darkon's Debris Lance E
• Darkon's Debris Lance CC P
• Darkon's Debris Lance CC E
• Darkon's Debris Slicer P
• Darkon's Debris Slicer E
• Darkon's Debris Slicer CC P
• Darkon's Debris Slicer CC E
• Darkon's Debris Dagger P
• Darkon's Debris Dagger E
• Darkon's Debris Dagger CC P
• Darkon's Debris Dagger CC E
• Darkon's Royal Sword P
• Darkon's Royal Sword E
• Darkon's Royal Poleaxe P
• Darkon's Royal Poleaxe E
• Darkon's Royal Spear P
• Darkon's Royal Spear E
• Darkon's Royal Blades P
• Darkon's Royal Blades E
• Darkon's Royal Axe P
• Darkon's Royal Axe E
• Darkon's Royal Staff P
• Darkon's Royal Staff E
• Darkon's Royal Higure P
• Darkon's Royal Higure E
• Darkon's Royal Bow P
• Darkon's Royal Bow E

Party Business

In addition to dozens of new weapons, we've added a new mission to Nightwraith's mission chain "Party Business" called "40." It's not a huge addition, but an important one in the interest of tradition.

Gifting Reminder

Gifting is quickly approaching! We apologize if these reminders are getting tedious, but it's surprising how easy it is some to lose track of time. If you missed them, you can read this year's Gifting megapost here to refresh see a complete list of rules and possible prizes for this year's season.

Tags: Nightwraith

November 01, 2024

We hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween! It's hard to believe it's November and just over a month remains until Gifting 2024! While we work on all the Gifting content, EpicDuel is updating with some adjustments to improve PvP and PvE balance.

Balance Changes

• Terrify / Intimidate: 85 --> 100 Energy; improves with Support
• Energy Parasite: 3 --> 2 turn duration
• Static Smash: 100% --> 90% energy absorption; -20 points each level
• Frenzy: Energy cost increased 15 per each level
• Azrael's Chimera: 50% --> 30% health reduction
• Botanical Wrath: Initial damage : 50 --> 30; 50% --> 30% primary damage
• Incensory: 1 turn warmup
• Bio Borg (Thorns): 4 --> 3 turn duration; 85% --> 65% damage reflection
• Sea King's Spirit: Multi-use --> 1 time use
• Sea King's Spirit (NPC): New core added to Thalyssa; multi-use

Gifting Concierge

This was already posted on the original Gifting Returns 2024 post, but I'll reiterate it again since it's important information for anyone interested in participating in Gifting this year:

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the particants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Be sure to also check the original Gifting Returns 2024 post for new rule and rewards updates!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 25, 2024

As we announced last week, Gifting is returning. If you missed the post, you might want to check it out, even if you're not sure you want to participate in Gifting this year. 

Gifting Concierge

This was already posted on the original Gifting Returns 2024 post, but I'll reiterate it here since it's important information for anyone interested in participating in Gifting this year:

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the particants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Be sure to also check last week's post for new rule and rewards updates!

New Darkon Color Custom Rares

Visit Darkon in his portal realm to access his new stock of limited-quantity color custom rares!

• Darkon's Debris Katana CC P
• Darkon's Debris Katana CC E
• Darkon's Debris Scythe CC P
• Darkon's Debris Scythe CC E
• Darkon's Debris Berserker CC P
• Darkon's Debris Berserker CC E
• Darkon's Debris Spear CC P
• Darkon's Debris Spear CC E
• Darkon's Debris Blades CC P
• Darkon's Debris Blades CC E
• Darkon's Debris Axe CC P
• Darkon's Debris Axe CC E
• Darkon's Debris Staff CC P
• Darkon's Debris Staff CC E

Grab them now while the supply lasts!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 18, 2024

It’s that time of year again: time for an official announcement of Gifting 2024! The new Gifting Even will go live Monday December 9 and last until Monday January 13! This year’s event will include many of the changes we made last year with some additional bonuses! For this post, we will provide a list of updated rules and prizes so please please PLEASE read these changes carefully if you're thinking of participating in Gifting!

Mailbox Bloat

Last year was a very successful event – so successful that the volume of gifts caused the servers to crash every few hours! This year we’re going to try to mitigate that issue with some changes. To start, the possible gifts will be limited to Credits and Arcade Tokens. Items that were formerly in the prize pool will be available for purchase at a holiday shop. While this is less exciting than opening a package to find a new rare item, awarding Credits streamlines the process and prevents inventories from being jammed with thousands of duplicate items.

Rewards

Last year we made some major changes to the Gifting rewards to mitigate the prize creep that accompanied the prize-creation phase post Gifting. This was largely successful as most rewards were fulfilled within a few weeks as opposed to 6 months or a year later. 

This year, we are adding back some previous reward options like hairstyles and replica items. Though the rewards are more generous, please read this section carefully. We don't want anyone to feel disappointed at the end of the event. We also don’t want to engage in any post-Gifting negotiations to find loopholes or other unreasonable requests. Also, this year, like last year, there will be no prize codes provided for the top prize.

The Top 15

The top 15 Gifters in this event will be eligible to receive one Legacy item. Additionally, they will be able to receive an extra Legacy item for each 1,000,000 points past the first 1,000,000. This means that if you end Gifting with a score of over 3,000,000, you would be eligible for 3 Legacy items.

*A Legacy item is any EpicDuel item aside from Founder Armor that is no longer available in-game. It could be something from a phase like the Gamma Bot or a permanent rare like the Bunnyzookas. Participants in the top 15 at the end of the event may choose 1 Legacy item. These items may have light personalized touches to them. A class-changing weapon counts as 1 item.

Please note: Personalizations that include CPU-taxing effects may affect the in-game performance for you and other players. We will try our best to optimize the items, but there are limitations to Flash’s rendering capabilities. Please consider this when conceptualizing your prize.

The #1 Gifter at the end of the event will be eligible for a Legacy item AND a custom item. The custom item grand prize can be an item from any existing category. If it's a category of item that has P and E variants, the opposite variant can be created as a recolor. Customization requests can be refused if they're deemed unreasonable or illegal (copy-written material, offensive, etc...) or if they exceed the limitation of the game (creating excessive lag, too large, too complex). Unlike last year, cores attached the custom item or robot attacks CAN be customized, but their effects in-battle must have in-game equivalents.

Finally, we will be retaining the bonus awarded to the player or players with the most Top Daily Gifter: The option for an additional Legacy item (non-Founder). If there is a tie for the most Top Daily Gifter achievements, the tied players will all receive the bonus.

Founder Armor Rule

As in previous years, those who achieve a Gifting score of at least 1,000,000 AND place in the top 15 may request Founder Armor as a prize. Hypothetically, your score is greater than 1,000,000 but you're still in 16th place, you will unfortunately not be eligible for the Founder Armor. Additionally, though this is a rare scenario, if you place in the top 15, and have the original Founder Achievement, but not the armor, you may request Founder Armor as your Legacy item.

Sharing

A very popular feature of the most recent Gifting Event was the ability to share prizes with a select list of friends. Since there was no restriction, lists quickly got excessive. This year, the top 15 will be permitted to share their rewards with up to 20 other players. This includes custom hairstyles.

If someone wishes to share rewards with more than 20 other players, they may opt to offer their items or styles in-game for a price. They may also choose to have replica items created to be sold in-game while maintaining the uniqueness of the original. These replica items may have very minor changes to distinguish them.

To clarify some questions about this policy, winners may share each reward with 20 other players per item. For example, if someone qualifies for 2 legacy rares, they can share those rares with 20 people per item, potentially up to 40 different people if those items aren't shared with any of the same people.

Finally, this sharing policy does not include winners from past years of Gifting. If you are a past winner and want to share, unfortunately we had to end the sharing about a month ago. Thank you for understanding. 

Reward Efficiency

Last year we had multiple reward systems including a tiered structure based on rank and one based on placement on the Gifting leaderboard. This year, we would like to consolidate the Chest rewards with the score-based rewards. To clarify, there will be no more Gold, Silver, or Bronze Chests: there will only be score-based rewards, like the Cyber Wolf Collection. The new reward tiers will go from scores of 10K to 1 million. We are currently working on concepts for the new reward items with the theme of Alpha-Omega Valkyrie. We hope this change makes it easier to understand exactly what you’re getting for your Gifting contributions.

New Epic Supporter Achievements

Since the Epic Supporter achievements have been active for most of 2024 already, we’d like to refresh these achievements with special variants for Gifting. These new achievements will be introduced late in November to replace the current Epic Supporter achievements for the duration of Gifting. Because the Varium package quantities were so popular, they will remain at their current quantities throughout Gifting.

Reward Summary (updated 10-25-2024):

• Choose carefully! Winners will be restricted to 1 item as a prize. Mutating items and mutating armors count as one item.
• The #1 winner may have a customized core animation with their prize.
• Any top 15 Gifters who exceed a score of 4,000,000 will be eligible to ask for a custom prize, similar to the 1st place reward.
• Top 15 Gifters are eligible for 1 Legacy item with light personal modifications.
• Personalizations may be refused for being excessive in terms of scope or impact on game performance.
• Those in the top 15 may also request a custom hairstyle. This style may be kept as a personal or offered in-game for a price. It can be given to up to 20 other players by request.
• Those in the top 15 may also request an item/achievement transfer from one character they own to another owned character. The number of transfers is equal to the number of legacy items the winner qualifies for.
• Winners may offer their prizes to up to 20 players.
• Replicas are returning! Winners may request replica versions of their prizes to sell in-game. These replica items may have small changes (or none).
• No prize codes will be offered to the winner this year.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item you may also receive an Energy variant and vice versa. For example, if you request the Bunnyzooka, you may also have the Energy Bunnyzooka.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item and the Energy version does not exist, a new Energy version will NOT be created.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item you may NOT request the Energy variant of a completely different weapon.
• Armors do not have P or E variants, but you may NOT request an armor + an item.
• The prize item can be any sword, sidearm, auxiliary, home item, armor, vehicle, mutation, bot, or class-specific item that has ever been available in-game. Founder Armor may be requested as long as the one placing in the top 15 has a score of over 1,000,000.
• The item must have been available in EpicDuel at some time. Items from other AE games are not permitted.
• You may NOT request the custom reward of a Gifting winner from a previous year or this year.
• If your requested item originally included an achievement (i.e. Infernal Slayer), you will NOT also receive the achievement if you request the same item.
• The item may have any core available in-game equipped to it as long as it's of the proper category (i.e. no auxiliary cores on primary weapons, etc...).
• Core graphics and animations for Legacy items will NOT be customized.
• For balance reasons, skills cannot be modified (i.e. additional damage, % effectiveness, cooldown, damage type, cost, etc...).
• Please consider your prize carefully because once the item is in-game, there will be no revisions permitted except for bug fixes. 

We will work with all winners to help create the best rewards possible, but these limitations are necessary to prevent the scope of the rewards from expanding to far and eclipsing the rest of EpicDuel’s development. Last year, all top Gifters were cooperative and understanding of these goals so we hope to continue that trend for this next event. We tried to include as much information as possible for this post, but there still may be more changes (or things we forgot) before Gifting begins.

Gifting Concierge

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the participants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Tis the Season to Be Wary

Gifting is a joyful time in EpicDuel, but it also brings out nefarious scammers who want to take advantage of other players. Don't risk your account or bank account for a complete stranger online who promises you great rewards or free Varium. Though times and technology change, the old adage holds true: if someone is promising you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is! 

Progress Report

Updates will be slower to arrive leading up to Gifting as we’re preparing the new Battlepass + the new Gifting reward items. To tantalize you, here’s a preview of concepts for the Alpha-Omega Valkyrie set. These are just concepts and not a guarantee of the final rewards.

Tags: Nightwraith

October 11, 2024

New Hallowed Seasonal Rares

Spooky season is here in EpicDuel with returning seasonal rares and brand new seasonal rares available at Bido!

• Bido's Hallowed Greatsword P
• Bido's Hallowed Greatsword E
• Bido's Hallowed Scythe P
• Bido's Hallowed Scythe E
• Bido's Hallowed Blades P
• Bido's Hallowed Blades E
• Bido's Hallowed Axe P
• Bido's Hallowed Axe E
• Bido's Hallowed Staff P
• Bido's Hallowed Staff E
• Bido's Hallowed Spear P
• Bido's Hallowed Spear E

Other seasonal rares are also available at Snork and Caden!

HalloWarrior 4.0

The new HalloWarrior 4.0 achievement is now available from the seasonal section of the achievement shop!

Deltamancer Preview

The Kaiju Slayer Battlepass is still fresh, but the next Battlepass is currently in development. Look for the Deltamancer set to release early in December!

If you haven't started the latest Battlepass, don't worry! You should still have plenty of time to complete the current one before the next goes live (but don't wait too long, of course!).

Tags: Nightwraith