EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

April 05, 2019

The day has finally come! It's been nearly 6 years and after hundreds of constructive and not-so-constructive comments, emails, and forum posts later Passive Skills have returned to the skill trees of EpicDuel! Party like it's 2013 and experiment with build options not possible in years, if at all!

Balance

Passive skills return to replace their former active skills! If you're new to EpicDuel, you're probably wondering why this is significant. Passive Skills haven't been a part of the game since 2013 and the game has changed a lot since then. At the time, we felt that Passive Skills didn't make the battles feel dynamic enough. On the surface, Passive Skills aren't as cool as summoning a lightning bolt or activating a space laser, but because they can impact almost every round for 0 cost, they're extremely powerful and essential for most builds. We replaced them with new active skills hoping that would make energy management more valuable and diversity builds. Sound theory, but the removal of Passive Skills left a large hole in EpicDuel that the new skills never quite replaced. This reversal could have happened much sooner, but many of the Passive Skills were completely shredded in the transition with the assumption that we would never go back. While some were simple to return (Blood Lust and Reroute are still equipped to many NPCs), others had to be rebuilt. This was a big, scary change with many unknown consequences, but hopefully it will all be worth it!

• Bounty Hunter
  • Blood Lust - Replaces Mark of Blood
  • Shadow Arts - Replaces (Active) Shadow Arts
  • Massacre - Removed Lifesteal
• Mercenary
  • Adrenaline - Replaces Adrenaline Rush
  • Hybrid Armor - Replaces (Active) Hybrid Armor. Now based on % of Defense / Resistance rather than flat value
• Tech Mage
  • Deadly Aim - Replaces Fire Scythe. Reduced in power due to sidearm damage amplifying cores
  • Reroute - Replaces Battery Backup
• Cyber Hunter
  • Plasma Armor - Replaces (Active) Plasma Armor. Now based on % of Resistance rather than flat value
  • Shadow Arts - Replaces (Active) Shadow Arts
• Tactical Mercenary
  • Reroute - Replaces Battery Backup
  • Mineral Armor - Replaces (Active) Mineral Armor. Now based on % of Defense rather than flat value
• Blood Mage
  • Blood Lust - Replaces Mark of Blood
  • Deadly Aim - Replaces Bludgeon rather than Energy Parasite as it is extremely valuable to many Blood Mage builds
  • Supercharge - Removed Lifesteal

Since this is such a major change to battle dynamics, and the game has changed so much in 6 years, we'll definitely need some follow up updates to balance the returning skills. This'll be an ongoing process, but a major step towards returning something dearly missed by longtime players.

Core Changes

• Shell Shocker defense reduction increased to 15% from 10%
• Blood Bullet damage increase reduced to 125% from 135%

Hairstyles

Since enough people liked the April Fool's armor, I've separated the head from the armor and added as a hairstyle. Now you can have whatever helm or hair you wish with the armor!

Bug Fixes

Spirit Meld now properly ignores armor on user. Additional defense reduction penalty added to description.

Tags: Nightwraith