EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

December 09, 2016

Howdy EpicDuelists! We hope you're enjoying the new gifting season! Some of you have been very enthusiastic about gifting so starting Monday (as soon as the next release is live), we'll be offering a 15,000 Varium package. This will replace the 12,000 Varium package for a limited time. 

Everyone who acquires this package will receive, as a bonus, an Epic Supporter achievement worth 2500 Rating Points!

"BUT NIGHTWRAITH!" you exclaim. "I've already purchased a $50 package!" I have good news for you -- we'll be awarding 3000 Varium to to all who've purchased the 12k Varium or BioBeasts packages at least since gifting began.

This new package, along with the BioBeasts package, will be available until shortly after the gifting event ends.

Enter the Maze

Our areas of focus on EpicDuel for the last few months have been primarily to improve the sustainability and longevity of the game as well and increased the enjoyment of players at all level ranges. Player counts tend to peak around December, but at certain times of day it can still be challenging to find a good match! Since acquiring new players becomes more challenging each year, we've developed a solution to this ongoing problem: AI.

In order to ensure that players can always find matches, especially while leveling to 40, NPCs will be automatically added to battles at intervals while waiting if a player cannot be found. The system will pick a level-appropriate NPC to add to the match if a player was not found in a certain amount of time. In the case of 2v2 and Juggernaut, 1 NPC will be added at a time until the match is full.

To make NPCs more competant allies, we've improved their AI so they will attempt to heal a partner in critical condition. They're not perfect, but neither are human allies. We've also worked to minimize the instances of only one player in a 2v2 having an AI partner.

While you may be apprehensive about this change, it actually enables some fresh and interesting scenarios.

NPCs level 37+ will not be added to battles, so players near/at max level should see less NPCs than lower level players. If you're a level 40, you will probably rarely encounter an NPC. This change is primarily intended to bolster the matching at low-to-mid level ranges so players will be more likely to stick with the game and eventually reach the cap!

Restock!

Tired of bugging the devs on Twitter to restock your favorite item? Angry that your favorite items are always restocked when you're asleep or in school/at work? We finally have a solution for you! Non-Seasonal Limited Rares will now automatically be restocked every few weeks if depleted. Check NPCs with limited quantity items such as Charfade to see when the next restock will happen.

Legendary Balance

This is probably the hottest balance topic right now and we're addressing it with this release. We were hearing a lot of feedback on the Legendary Rank system, namely that it provides too much power, and that 10 ranks were generally worth more than 1 regular level. With this we want to bring down the overall power given by Ranks, which should also even out the 10 ranks to 1 level ratio. We are also reducing the credit and Varium prices to make the ranks more affordable.

Juggernaut Balance

We undershot a bit with the Juggernaut matching, especially since Underdog is now a thing. We want to keep Underdog buffs in Juggernaut to balance out the difference between getting, say, two level 32s vs two level 27s. This way we can keep the difficulty of each match relatively equal while keeping the level ranges large enough to try and get matches in a reasonable time. This gives us a lot more balancing levers to pull to get Juggernaut battles in a better spot

Look for all these features and more when our next release goes live Monday (probably sometime in the mid-afternoon). Why Monday? So we have as much time as possible to test and get last-minute feedback for this major update!

Tags: Titan