EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

June 27, 2025

EpicDuel is live and alive with a massive overhaul to housing, new War rewards tiers, and dozens of balance adjustments!

Home Interface Overhaul

• Items of the same type are now stacked.
• Slight buffer applied to clicking and dragging items to prevent misclicks.
• Clicking items to place them from inventory will automatically place them near the center of the room.
• Items now return to inventory instantly after removing them.
• Items equipped to the room are tracked visually show how close to the cap you are.
• To maintain data integrity, you must save before purchasing.
• Multiple timers have been added to prevent data desynchronization from rapid actions. When in doubt, saving your configuration will fully synch your home layout.
• Bulk home item selling is coming soon.

Seasonal Return

It's that time of year again! EpicDuel is maintaining it's tradition of restoring all the seasonal rare for a limited time during the Summer. Stay cool with some Frysteland rares from Torgan or adopt spooky autumn vibes with Snork's Halloween rares.

The Price of War

The War Token shop pricing has been adjusted to reflect the rarity and desirability of the prizes. We will be adding more over time so hold onto your War Tokens if you don't see your coveted War Prize yet.

We've also added a new 50,000 Influence tier to war participation: Emperor.This tier offers 100,000 Credits, 100 Arcade Tokens, and 2 War Tokens. All other tiers have been shifted downward, with the Private Tier now being the 1,000 Influence tier. The tiers now look like this:

• Emperor - 50,000 Influence
• Warlord - 25,000 Influence
• Commander - 15,000 Influence
• Sergeant - 5,000 Influence
• Private - 1,000 Influence

Balance Changes

This week we're implementing a ton of changes to address runaway stat inflation, class balance, and Legendary points.

• Core Changes
  • Absolution (Armor): +5 Technology, +5 Support.
  • Absolution (Primary): +2 Technology, +2 Support.
  • Absolution (Sidearm): +2 Technology, +2 Support.
  • Absolution (Auxiliary): +2 Technology, +3 Support.
  • Domination (Armor): +5 Strength, +5 Dexterity.
  • Domination (Primary): +3 Strength, +2 Dexterity.
  • Domination (Sidearm): +2 Strength, +3 Dexterity.
  • Domination (Auxiliary): +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity.
  • Infinity (Armor): +5 Strength, +5 Technology.
  • Infinity (Primary): +3 Strength, +2 Technology.
  • Infinity (Sidearm): +2 Strength, +2 Technology.
  • Infinity (Auxiliary): +2 Strength, +2 Technology.
  • Destruction (Armor): +5 Strength, +5 Support.
  • Destruction (Primary): +3 Strength, +2 Support.
  • Destruction (Sidearm): +2 Strength, +2 Support.
  • Destruction (Auxiliary): +2 Strength, +3 Support.
  • Fortitude (Armor): +5 Dexterity, +5 Technology.
  • Fortitude (Primary): +2 Dexterity, +2 Technology.
  • Fortitude (Sidearm): +3 Dexterity, +2 Technology.
  • Fortitude (Auxiliary): +2 Dexterity, +2 Technology.
  • Vigor (Armor): +5 Dexterity, +5 Support.
  • Vigor (Primary): +2 Dexterity, +2 Support.
  • Vigor (Sidearm): +3 Dexterity, +2 Support.
  • Vigor (Auxiliary): +2 Dexterity, +3 Support.
  • Supremacy (Armor): +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +4 Technology, +2 Support.
  • Supremacy (Primary): +2 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Technology, +1 Support.
  • Supremacy (Sidearm): +1 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +1 Technology, +1 Support.
  • Supremacy (Auxiliary): +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Technology, +2 Support.
  • Prime Dexterity Boost (Sidearm): +4.
  • Prime Support Boost (Auxiliary): +4.
  • Prime Strength Boost (Primary): +4.
  • Prime Technology Boost (Armor): +8.
  • x30 Boost cores match the Prime cores
  • Dexterity Boost (Sidearm): +3.
  • Support Boost (Auxiliary): +3.
  • Strength Boost (Primary): +3.
  • Technology Boost (Armor): +7.
  • Primary/Gun/Auxiliary Mastery: +10% damage on basic attacks, removed +25 damage boost.
  • Eternal Enhance: +3 Strength, +3 Dexterity, +3 Technology, +3 Support.
  • Infernal Prism: added 200 HP heal.
  • Infernal Offering: 340 EP total gain, 2 turns 170 EP each turn.
  • Health reserve: Flat +450hp does not scale with armor (does not stack with crit heal).
  • Bido's Bitters: Duration increased to 6 from 4.
  • Shadowlord's Severance P/E: 27% def ignore.

• Legendary Rank Boosts
  • Primary Damage Bonus: +30 to +20
  • Gun Damage Bonus: +40 to +20
  • Aux Damage Bonus: +30 to +20
  • Bot Damage Bonus: +30 to +20
  • Defense Bonus: +30 to +20
  • Resistance Bonus: +30 to +20
  • NPC Armor: +40 to +50 defense against NPCs
  • NPC Crusher: +40 to +50 damage against NPCs

• General 
  • Focus boosts: Focus level 1/2 = 0 boosts; Focus level 3/4 = +1/1/1/1, Focus level 5 = +2/2/2/2; Focus level 6 = +3/3/3/3.
  • Agility/encumbrance: Removed from game. We're still investigating better ways of addressing extreme HP builds in PvP.

• Class Changes
  • Reflex Boost: 80 EP level 1, +5 EP per level  , flat +42 Dexterity at level 1, increasing by 3 per level.
  • Energy Shield: +20 EP per level  to +10 EP per level.
  • Defense Matrix: +20 EP per level  to +10EP.
  • Blood Instinct: flat +42 level 1, increasing by 3 per level.
  • Terrify: flat -42 level 1, increasing by 3 per level, scaling removed; 15 EP per Level to +5 EP.
  • Plasma Grenade: 10% ignore to 15%.
  • Proton Cannon: Revert to 20% lifesteal and 26% Energy drain.
  • Maul: +5 EP per level.
  • Intimidate: 15 EP per level to +5 EP. Removed scaling. 36 flat Strength Debuff at level 1, increasing by 3 per level.

Coming Soon

Next week we hope to roll out more improvements to housing, while finally catching up on the Gifting prizes. Plus, we have new items from Bido and more War Token items to release! Plus, Acatriel is hard at work on the next Battlepass, and it's already looking amazing!

Tags: Nightwraith

June 20, 2025

War Token Shop Preview

Visit Morzyd the Scavenger in The Bazaar (the huge crashed battleship in The Barrens) to browse her inventory of past War Prizes. The shop requires at least one War Token to access the shop! The items are temporarily priced at 5 War Tokens for now while we work on a fair pricing model that applies the proper value to coveted War Prizes. Also, the shop is still being populated with prizes so there are still many more armors and mutating items that are yet to be stocked in the shop. Save those precious War Tokens if there's still an item you want to see featured.

War Prizes purchased from this shop, when they can be purchased, cannot be sold. Additionally, only one of each item can be purchased and owned. This is to make sure nobody accidentally "wastes" their War Tokens on accidental purchases.

Homes UI Update

• "Clear All" button below the "Save" button to allow you to instantly remove all items from a home at once. This is great for when you accidentally drag some awkward items partially off-screen.
• Items in your inventory are now sorted based on most recently purchased, then grouped by ID so all your duplicates will be grouped together. This is the first step towards item stacking in Homes.

Arcade 10x Follow Up

With this update we have corrected the bug that prevented the 10x multi-spin option from updating the Arcade score correctly. It's always fascinating to check the data to see what features are appreciated purely based on data, because sometimes player feedback alone undersells how much a feature is used.

For example, thus far over 32,000 items have been Locked and 5,000 items Favorited using the new inventory options. Clearly there was a ton of demand for those features.

More recently, the day before we introduced the 10x option to Arcades, 8,818 Tokens were spent, with a value of 576,860. The day we launch 10x, the number jumped to 41,030 spins with a value of 20,818,560! Those number seem impressive, but then I realized that the tracker was not updated to recognize the 10x spin, so those numbers could be up to 10 times higher! 

I know these quality of life features aren't as exciting as flashier (pun not intended) battle-centric features and improvements, but it's crystal clear that those features are not going unused or unnoticed.

Fixes, Changes, and Balance

• All time win rates restored to the Leaderboards.
• First strike: Everyone but the the starting player will start with 20% Rage.
• Critical Heal: Threshold increased to 30% from 25% to match the kneeling animation.
• Static Grenade: Set to 90% damage instead of 80%

Tags: Nightwraith

June 16, 2025

Glow-in-the-Drake T-Shirt

Because true heroes shine brightest in the dark.

Channel your inner dragon spirit. By day, it’s sleek, iconic Artix logo. But when the lights go out, the real magic begins. Infused with glow-in-the-dark enchantments, it radiates with arcane energy, glowing bright as if summoned from the heart of Lore’s deepest dungeons. Perfect for late-night raids, shadowy side quests, or just flexing your legendary status in the real world.

Visit HeroMart to order the epic Glow-in-the-Drake T-Shirt today!

Bonus Digital In-Game Rewards

When you pick up this product, you’ll also unlock in-game rewards across AdventureQuest Worlds, AdventureQuest 3D, DragonFable, EpicDuel, and AdventureQuest Classic! Exclusive rewards in EpicDuel include:

•  Achievement - Glow-in-the-Drake
• Weapon - Glowing Dragon's Blade P & E
• Weapon - Cyber Dragon's Blade P & E
• Weapon - BackLight Dragon's Blade P & E
• Weapon - Cyber Battleon Blade P & E

Tags: Nightwraith

June 13, 2025

Friday the 13th!

Friday the 13th seasonal rares are back! Visit Snork, Caden, and Dage to complete your collection!

Also, check out the achievement shop for the first and only Friday the 13th achievement of 2025. 

Quality of Life Changes

• Arcade Multi-spin: Use 10 tokens at a time for Arcades. Duplicates that aren't misc/mission items or home items are automatically sold.
• Faction Officers: 6 slots -> 8 slots
• Hairstyles that aren't meant to be sold are now identified with a message instead of "999999" Varium.

Balance Changes

• Beauty bot special: 100% damage -> 90%, 20% poison -> 15%
• Jack frost special: Cooldown: 4 turns -> 3 turns

Main To-Do List

• War Shop with War Token functionality.
• Gifter Prizes
  • We're down to the last few prizes, and we're nearing the end, but we still want each prize to look as good as possible so we're not rushing. Thank you for your continued patience and know that we will get to your prizes as soon as we can!
• Home Item Overhaul:
  • stackable home items
  • bulk selling home items
  • other UI improvements

Tags: Nightwraith

June 05, 2025

EpicDuel is LIVE with an early release of performance improvements, new features, and serious bug fixes!

Favorite Items

Tag your favorite items as Favorites from your inventory interface. Favorite items take top priority in item sorting, except in the Merchant interface (selling) in which they're last. You cannot sell Favorite items. Favoriting is distinct from Locking in that a Favorite item can be locked. Favoriting and unFavoriting has no impact on the Locked status. This means you can also Favorite unsellable items! We are currently planning more robust sorting and filtering options (i.e. Rarity, Date, etc...) for future updates!

Performance Improvements

Everyone hates waiting around while the computer is "thinking" so I took some time to investigate some EpicDuel features with excessive load times to see if there was any room for improvements. Sure enough, there was!

• Reduced load times and improved responsiveness on Achievements interface.
  • It's like the difference between HDDs and SSDs.
• Reduced load times and improved responsiveness on Missions interface.
  • Because of the new caching changes, sometimes mission data may not be up to date, especially if you're online during the daily reset. The Refresh Mission Data button acts as a failsafe.

War Shop

The War Shop is still under construction as we're working on populating the shop and refining the War Token currency. For now, all current war prizes have been tagged as War Rares to differentiate them in your inventory.

Bug Fixes/Changes

• Trying to remove locked Basic items results in a kick
• Public chat and PMs not working from a Faction HQ
• Skull Cracker and Skull Smasher deal 125% damage instead of 120%
• Chairman's Fury can give the user Rage beyond the 100% limit. This was always possible but unnoticed prior to the Chairman's Fury change. Rage is now globally capped at a player's max threshold.
• Double Strike, Teckstalker Special, Tremor Blast, Telekinesis, and Saevussax Evisceration apply a block/deflection buff on the user instead of only a block/deflection debuff on the target. They now apply only defensively on the target, i.e. ONLY the target's ability to block and deflect incoming attacks are affected, not outgoing attacks.  
• Pumpkin Lord's name is misspelled in the room where the NPC is located

TO DO: 

• Cores with multiple item disables like Sea King's Curse cannot be used when Armor Annihilator (Blood Hawk) is active

Main TO DO:

• War Shop with War Token functionality.
• Arcade Token multi-spin (use 10 Arcade Tokens at once).
• Home Item overhaul:
  • stackable home items
  • bulk selling home items
  • other UI improvements
• Gifter Prizes
  • We're down to the last few prizes, but unfortunately, that's the most frustrating part for those who just happen to be at the end of the list. It stinks waiting for 6+ months for something, but unfortunately, we can only work on so many items at once, and no matter how long or short the list is, there is always someone in the unfortunate position of being last. However, the only way to the end is through, and we remain fully committed to completing these prizes to the very best of our abilities. Thank you for your continued patience and know that we will get to your prizes as soon as we can!

Tags: Nightwraith

June 02, 2025

EpicDuel just rolled out several new, highly-requested, long-awaited features! Read on for details...

Inventory Features

• Your inventory now sorts by locked status first to group all your precious locked items together. When interacting with a merchant, the sorting puts locked items last so save scrolling time when searching for sellable items.
• Locked items will be noted with a "(x)" prefix on their inventory record.
• Unlocked items with no Varium sellback, no cores, and matching configurations can be sold in bulk. Eligible items will show a quantity with the sellback amount. If you have 10 duplicate items but you only want to sell 9, you can simply lock the one you wish to keep or configure it differently from the other items. This will make selling the dozens (or hundreds) of Arcade and PvP drops accumulated over the years much more efficient, freeing up valuable inventory space.

War Changes

• War Tier Overhaul: War tiers have been adjusted. The former tier 1 has been dropped and all other existing tiers, requirements and rewards have been moved down to make room for a new and improved tier 5. This means the new minimum requirement for a prize is 1000 influence and the new highest tier requires 25,000 influence and rewards 50,000 Credits, 50 Arcade Tokens, the prize item, and a new War Token. 
• War Tokens will be used in a future update to exchange for old war prizes. The war prizes in this new shop will be designated with a (WS) affix to differentiate them from the old war prizes, which will also receive a new rarity classification (War Rare -- say that five times fast!) in a future update. This is a compromise to make those who originally won the rares retain their accomplishment while providing an opportunity for new players to enjoy some classic, rarely seen gear!
• Use all war items at once: When you click the button to use your regular or super war items, you will use all the items of that type you have in your inventory at once. I thought of including separate single and multiple use buttons, but I could not think of a reason why you wouldn't want to drop all your war items at once. Varium war item upgrades are still performed one at a time.

Balance

• Venom strike BH/CH: 100% damage, 10 less energy cost per level
• Chairman's Fury P/E: 125% damage, 100% rage steal, 0 energy cost
• Piston Punch: 110% damage
• Icy Overkill (Aux and Gun): 125% damage, 25% def ignore
• Zeus' Might, Omega Override, Minor Omega Override: 2 turn duration
• Infernal blessing - 175 HP on use then +2 (525 HP Total)
• Azrael's Affliction P/E: - 100% damage
• Jack Frost Smash P/E: 15% defense ignore instead of 25% crit
• Jack Frost's Fury P/E: 20% damage as energy drained (initial), 20% of total bot damage as energy drain over 2 turns
• Infernal Fortitude, Revenant's Wall, Armored Roots - single use, new unlimited-use NPC versions introduced for sale in-game
  • Armored Roots (NPC) - Xraal
  • Revenant's Wall (Pimary NPC) - The Challenger
  • Revenant's Wall (Armor NPC) - The Challenger
  • Infernal Fortitude (Pimary NPC) - Kraggor

Bug Fixes:

• Joining a new faction would break your daily battle stat display for that day.
• Rapidly clicking the Battlepass "Challenges" button, closing the interface, then opening it again would result in a kick.

Tags: Nightwraith