EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

December 30, 2021

EpicDuel's last update 2021 is now Live! Experience new features, new missions, and new items plus several critical fixes. 

Core Corrections

While the core-swapping feature was well received last week, it still brought a few pesky bugs that needed squashed. The cores most affected by this were cores that were never offered for sale in-game or were never meant to be removed from their original item.

• Stun Shot: Swaps correctly without being destroyed. Due to the rarity of this core, those who accidentally destroyed their Stun Gun cores will have them restored.
• Char’s Revenge: Added for sale on Charfade.
• Infernal Spirit: Now has distinct Sidearm and Auxiliary variants. Sold at the Light Mechachillid's shop.
• Ebil Crusher: Unlocked on the Platinum Pulverizer
• Gifter’s Custom Wish Cores: Unlocked and swappable.
• Infernal Fortitude: Infernal Golem armors now come pre-equipped with armor versions of the core.
• Icy Chill: Distinct Sidearm and Auxiliary variants added to Edgar Boothe.
• Azrael’s Anguish P/E: Unlocked core slots.
• Aphrodite’s Woe P/E: Unlocked core slots.
• Harvest Reaper and Spectral Reaper: Unlocked core slots.
• Unbreakable Spirit: Typo corrected.
• Lucky Strike: Typo corrected on armor variant.

New Features/Changes

Spider has been moving at incredible speeds to deliver some of the most desperately desired EpicDuel quality of life changes. This week, the focus was on improvements to inventory, adding a search bar. Gifters will also appreciate the new /open1000gifts command that will make short work of your gift stockpile, complete with a readout of total items and credits gained.

• Additions
  • Search bars in the bank, core viewer, merchant, and inventory
  • "X" button to clear all text in the chat and search bars
• Changes
  • /open100gifts replaced with /open1000gifts
  • Duplicates in gifts are replaced with 2k credits -- Cores and Mission Items are exempted
  • Withdrawing/Depositing an item from inventory <-> bank will select the previous item in the list
  • Swapping core warning messages now only show if replacing a limited core
• Fixes
  • After buying a shared style and switching classes, the game no longer gives an error message for trying to equip the recently bought style

Some of you are already having trouble with the search feature due to tens of thousands of items in your inventory. Engaging with search may cause severely slow server response, but we're working on several solutions to this issue. You can avoid the slowdown by avoiding the bar for now.

Home Arcade

Another highly requested feature was the ability to purchase ArcadeBots for your homes. Now you can spin your way through the games and purchase Tokens from the comfort of your apartment, yurt, or subterranean compound.

New Daily Missions

New Omega Void trials have been added with to reward armors to match the brutal Inquisitor weapons!

• Inquisitor's Armor
• Inquisitor's CC Armor

Gifting Rules Update

At the start of this year's Gifting event we established a stricter scope for prizes. The intention was to prevent the obligations to the prize winners from spinning out of control, expanding throughout the year. Because the performance on the leaderboards has been so overwhelmingly impressive this year, we decided to allow some additional bonuses to those who cross the 1 million and 2 million gift thresholds.

• Top 15 Gifters who achieve a score of at least 1 million and do not want Founder Armor may instead request for their prize the alternate damage type version of their chosen weapon if it already exists in-game. They may also request personalized cores for that item similar to what was offered in 2018. Only the animation and/or icon can be altered, not the skill itself. The core/skill must also already exist in game for that particular item type. Finally, they may request a custom hairstyle.
• Top 15 Gifters who achieve a score of at least 1 million will receive 2 Secret and Silver Secret packages to distribute at their discretion.
• Top 15 Gifters who achieve a score of 2 million or more and do not want Founder Armor may instead request for their prize a weapon set consisting of a sidearm, auxiliary, and primary (sword or mutating weapon, but not both). This set must already exist in game (i.e. Beta Weapons or the numerous promotional package weapons). They may also request personalized cores similar to what was offered in 2018. Only the animation and/or icon can be altered, not the skill itself. The core/skill must also already exist in game for that particular item type. Finally, they may request a custom hairstyle.
• Top 15 Gifters who achieve a score of 2 million or more will receive 5 Secret and Silver Secret packages to distribute at their discretion.
• The #1 Gifter's completely customized item can be paired with an alternate damage type item of the same category if applicable. This bonus item will not also be completely customized but have an alternate color scheme determined by the winner. 

Tags: Nightwraith

December 25, 2021

Play AdventureQuest 3D on your PC, Mac, Apple, or Android device!

New Year's Eve Party!

Come join us! Artix & the team will be running monster and loot-filled live events in AdventureQuest 3D through the day to bring in the new year for players around the world. 

Get AdventureQuest 3D on your device

See you in the game.

Battle on!

Artix

P.S. Want to download and play our web games on your computer!? Grab the Artix Games launcher. It is tiny, safe, and runs on your PC, Mac, or Linux device.

Tags: Nightwraith

December 23, 2021

Inquisitor's Collection

This week we're buffing the Gifting drop pool with new weapons direct from the collection of Baelius' most elite, but mysterious, soldiers: The Inquisitors!

• Inquisitor's Executioner P
• Inquisitor's Executioner E
• Inquisitor's Enforcer P
• Inquisitor's Enforcer E
• Inquisitor's Punisher P
• Inquisitor's Punisher E
• Inquisitor's Claws P
• Inquisitor's Claws E
• Inquisitor's Might P
• Inquisitor's Might E
• Inquisitor's Awe P
• Inquisitor's Awe E

Quality of Life

One of the most frequently requested features is now available in-game courtesy of the efforts of Spider! Finally, you can remove an unlimited charge core without destroying it! After replacing a core it will be moved back into your inventory until you need to equip it again.

This feature does not currently apply to limited-charge cores (i.e. x10, x25, x30, etc...), which will still be destroyed when replaced.

A more minor change is that Nightmare Challenges now have their own button on NPCs that offer the option. This is especially valuable for NPCs will normal, Legendary, and Nightmare modes.

New Omega Void Trial Missions

Check out 2 new Daily Missions available at Alydriah to claim the incredible Martyr swords!

• Inquisitor's Blazing Martyr
• Inquisitor's Plasmic Martyr

New Styles

Complement your new Infernal Samurai or Inquisitor gear with 12 new styles!

New Achievement Tier

These new styles will get you just a little bit closer to the earning the Epic Stylist VII achievement, which unlocks once at least 400 styles are owned.

Arcade Change

A small change to the costs of Arcade Tokens has been applied. Although most Gifting participants are probably already drowning in Arcade Tokens, this change should help make Arcades more affordable in the post-Gifting EpicDuel.

• Cost for Arcade Token changed to 15 Varium.
• Cost for 10 Arcade Tokens changed to 100 Varium.

Bug Fix

You should now be able to shop from a merchant that requires a special item, even if the item is banked.

Tags: Nightwraith

December 17, 2021

Gifting has reached the midpoint, but the leaderboards are still just getting warmed up! Login today for new daily mission challenges, new styles, and more extreme Gifting action!

Early Gifter Upgrade

Last week there was a rather dramatic change to Gifting in the form of a lifting of the room/world population cap. The limit was raised from 200 to...well let's hope we don't hit the new limit. I'm surprised and impressed the game held up as well as it has. This change was mainly done to thwart the efforts of hackers who were bypassing the prior cap, but it also boosted scores rapidly. This led to those who Gifted in the first week to feel put out (to put it mildly). After a week of observing Gifting patterns and collecting additional data, we arrived at a solution that should adjust scores to appropriately account for the raised cap: 

• Anyone who Gifted between December 3 and December 9th will receive a 75% boost to their Gifting scores for that date range.
• This score bonus percentage was determined by observing gifting in the days since the change and determining the average score advantage from those major Gifting sessions.
• Anyone who was the #1 Daily Gifter for that date range will receive a bonus Exalted Daily Gifter achievement.
• This bonus will be applied manually so please be patient as the scores and achievements are updated. There are over 200 accounts to update so this could take several hours to complete.
• If the bonus puts you above the 15,000 Gift threshold for a Silver Secret Package, you will receive one. 

Founder Exception Clarification:

We've seen some speculation concerning the previously established Founder Exception, and I wanted to clarify the rules before any rumors spin out of control. First, the wording of the Founder Exception, taken from the original post: "Also, winners who achieve a gifting score higher than 1,000,000 gifts will be eligible for Founder."

"Winners" would only include people in the top 15 who achieve a score of 1,000,000. If all top 15 Gifters achieve scores over 1,000,000, all 15 could ask for Founder Armor. If the 16th place person gets a score of over 1,000,000, they wouldn't qualify.

People have also asked about adjusting the requirement upward to account for the room cap changes, but since this is the final Gifting Event, the requirement of 1,000,000 Gifts will stay as it is.

New Daily Omega Void Challenges:

Save those Void and Omega Wolf Shards to unlock a new batch of exotic weapons and a new armor in these new daily missions!

• Shrouded Nightmare
• Shrouded Oblivion
• Sanguine Nail
• Void Nail
• Eldritch Fang
• Void Fang
• Nightmare Fang
• Infernal Samurai

New Styles:

Five new holiday styles have arrived, including a rather festive CC Adjudicator helm! 

Tags: Nightwraith

December 10, 2021

It's been an incredible week for Gifting with strong initial showings from several determined players. This week we're buffing the Gifting drop pool with new items and adding new daily missions to help you spend those extra Void and Omega Wolf Shards weighing down your inventories.

Welcome, Acatriel!

With all the excitement of Gifting season it seems I forgot to officially announce Acatriel as the latest addition as a gold-name member of the EpicDuel team. He's worked with us for a few months on piecemeal contracts for individual weapon and armor sets, but quickly showed ambition for animating skills, bosses, and experimenting with map screens. This combination of skill, ambition, and dedication led us to upgrade him to a staff position. These last few months Acatriel has been instrumental in numerous content releases, including the Cosmic Carnage, Adjudicator Saga Events, and many of the Gifting drop items. Please be respectful and kind when you see him in-game and congratulate him on his role!

Before you ask, no, he can't make you mod, give you an account, or free Varium!

New Mods

If you see some new green names, do not fear. Unless, of course, you're breaking the TOS by doing things like hacking or cheating or trolling, then you should actually be afraid. The new mods are DeWalt, NEXTEC, and Estwing who are helping deal with the increased volume of moderator reports and actions that comes with the influx of players during gifting.

Some hackers may try to be sneaky and impersonate a new or old mod. Remember that real mods will never ask for your account information or offer you free Varium or accounts. 

New Gifting Item Drops

Gifting drops have been buffed with new creations from Acatriel representing the Infernal Samurai set! Can you collect them all? 

• Infernal Samurai Katana P
• Infernal Samurai Katana E
• Infernal Samurai Blaster P
• Infernal Samurai Blaster E
• Infernal Samurai Cannon P
• Infernal Samurai Cannon E
• Infernal Samurai Blades P
• Infernal Samurai Blades E
• Infernal Samurai Hammer P
• Infernal Samurai Hammer E
• Infernal Samurai Staff P
• Infernal Samurai Staff E

More Omega Void Trials

More daily missions have dropped! Seek Snork and Kraggor to forge these new rare weapons!

• Godeater
• Voideater
• Nightmare Devourer
• Apocalypse Tomb
• Oblivion Tomb

Overlord Operative Armor

Months ago players who qualified for the top prize in the Overlord Facility War received an unsellable mission item "Overlord Operative Blueprint". Because the official reward was behind schedule, this was designed to be a placeholder until the item could be completed. Months passes and this reward kept being kicked further and further back by the weekly demands of EpicDuel's updates, compounded by some technical errors that resulted in the armor's original file being lost and corrupted.

To compensate players who received this reward, last week we swapped the Blueprint for the Overlord Operative Armor. To compensate for the delay, these players also received the Overlord Operative Armor  CC and the Overlord Operative Order achievement. Special thanks to Acatriel for helping complete this long overdue reward.

• Overlord Operative Armor
• Overlord Operative Armor CC
• Overlord Operative Order achievement

Rating Stars

There was some confusion surrounding the nomenclature of the new rating tier for stars. Since Diamond Stars seemed confusing as diamond was interpreted as referring to shape rather than color, Infernal Stars (suggested by CactusChan) might be a better designation as the new stars do share the Infernal color scheme. I dig it. Since some players are already nearing the new cap, we may need to think of another tier sooner than later.

Tags: Nightwraith

December 03, 2021

Gifting 2021 Begins!

I can't believe it's here already, but the latest and last EpicDuel Gifting Event has begun! Login now to give and receive inconceivable mountains of loot, earn achievements, and spread holiday cheer throughout Delta V! Let's send off 2021 on a high note! 

This Gifting Event will last from December 3rd to January 7th, 2022.

In preparation of this gifting season, we also increased the room cap from 175-200, added a new tier of rating starts (Diamond Stars), and a World 8 instance. Remember to select "Low Performance: Hide Other Characters"  from the Settings menu when Gifting heats up, or the main heat you feel will be from your CPU.

To review the rules and regulations for the final prizes, please refer to this Design Notes post!

Omega Void Trials!

Be sure to check the Daily Missions for new missions that will allow you to redeem you excess Void Shards and Omega Wolf Shards for exclusive rares that will not be available any other way. These missions will be added throughout the event to keep things spicy and encourage folks to check back daily to see what new rewards are available!

Epic Suggestions!

Congratulations to xMalebox, Rulebook, and Sinister who are having their suggested weapons added to the pool of possible gifts. These Epic fans will receive the Epic Artist Achievement if they don't already have it, as well as their suggested items in-game. This probably wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of new EpicDuel artist Acatriel who went the extra mile to make these visions a reality.

Epic Styles!

In between gifting sessions, check out the style-change interface and browse the 14 new styles!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Let's make this the best Gifting season yet! Be safe, have fun, and Duel On!

Tags: Nightwraith