EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

March 11, 2022

The Angel of Death Azrael awaits those duelists brave enough to face him in 1v1 and 2v1 combat! If you can conquer Azrael and Nightmare Azrael you can claim 2 new achievements! Access his foreboding lair through the Afterlife or directly from the latest news screen.

UI Update

Spider helped us breathe new life into the Character select screen with a realtime view of your current characters that you can cycle through. This interface is expandable in the future to let us add more options to give a huge quality of life buff to EpicDuel's.

Enter the Simulation

One initiative I wanted to undertake seriously this year is to make EpicDuel a better place for new faces. We can add all the endgame bosses and gear we want, but if new players keep bouncing off in the early levels, the game will never grow beyond it's current base. It's no secret for longtime veterans of EpicDuel that Delta V can be a very unfriendly place for new citizens. New players often encounter similar problems: They start losing, but keep gaining XP and minimal credits. This forces players into a situation in which they're leveling up, but still can't afford to upgrade their gear. This puts players in a dour cycle where they keep losing without a clear path to a winning build. Sometimes, players may choose a class, play for a bit, realize they don't care for the playstyle of the class, and decide to quit or create a new character because the cost of changing class is too steep. 

To help ease this steep learning curve, we've included a new Simulation battle mode. In this mode, players can duel NPCs in a randomly selected 1v1, 2v2, or juggernaut mode. This mode offers fewer credits and XP than PvP modes, but it does offer a handful of new drop options: Coupons!

Players will now be able to win Coupons for free class change, retrain, or gear upgrade/retrain. Simulation mode has the highest chance to drop these items, but they will be available in all modes at lower rates. 

Don't think NPCs will be pushovers, though. Spider was able to make the simulation a bit spicier by giving NPCs the ability to buff themselves with shields! Maybe we can make them even smarter in the future. But not too smart. We have enough science fiction to remind us what happens when you give an AI too much power.

Balance Changes

A balance change has been a long time coming. There are obviously more issues to address, but these were some of the most pressing.

• Cyber Hunter
  • Neural Scythe: Instead of scaling damage per level, it now ignores defense based on skill level, similar to Fire Scythe
  • Proton Cannon: improves with Technology instead of Support
  • Adaptive Offense: Improves with Support instead of Dexterity
• Tactical Mercenary
  • Reroute: Replaced with Battery Backup 
• Cores
  • Naval Bombardment (Bot): Removed use limit
  • Minor Hammer Grenade P/E: Duration reduced to two turns
  • Frostbite: Increased cost to 90 from 60
  • Frost Shards: Increased cost to 120 from 90
  • Titan's Shroud: 3 turn duration, 25% damage reduction/deflection.
  • Sea King's Corruption: 100% damage. Heal reduction reduced to 35% from 45% for 3 rounds.

2v2 Achievement

Since players can now partner up in 2v2, we've updated the end of day rewards to grant the top two 2v2 players the daily team achievement in the event of a tie.

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