EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

July 24, 2026

Nightmare CactusChan drops

Challenge Nightmare CactusChan in the Wasteland desert for a chance to receive new Nightmare drops based on CactusChan's previous Gifting prizes!

• Nightmare Cactus Crusher P - 10%
• Nightmare Cactus Crusher E - 10%
• Nightmare Cactus Conflagrator - 2%
• Nightmare Cactus Corrupter - 2%
• Nightmare Pachycereus Pringlei - 3%
• Nightmare Stenocereus Thurberi - 3%
• Nightmare Malediction - 5%
• Nightmare Anathema - 5%

Remember, to battle Nightmare CactusChan, you'll first have to progress in the mission chain Nightmare in the Desert!

Daily Boss Bounties

View the Boss Slayer Leaders on Slayer in the Barrens for the latest daily boss bounty! Defeat the selected boss the most for the day to receive the Boss Breaker achievement! New boss bounties are selected at the end of the day when the leaderboards reset. To recognize boss duo teams, we will award achievements to the top daily boss battlers in the event of a tie.

The first daily bounty will be, appropriately enough, Nightmare CactusChan!

Battlepass Enhancements

In preparation of the upcoming Technomancer Battlepass, we've added some polish and perks to the Battlepass systems.

• Battlepass Enhanced button shows Varium price.
• Enhanced pass grants 20% more Battlepass XP. During Power Hour, this increases to 40%.
• Battlepass rewards now show a description of Robot/Core abilities.
• Challenges will display increased XP.
• Challenge progress/completion notifications are queued so when you progress multiple challenges, you will see each popup in a queue. A max of 5 popups will display, with additional popups appearing as the visible ones are closed or disappear on their own.
• Challenge popups now show whether it's a daily or weekly challenge.
• Completed challenges receive a unique popup animation.

NPC AI Overhaul

EpicDuel's NPCs were due for an upgrade. Maybe few of the current players remember, but NPC's were basically lobotomized in the Omega update. NPC AI was one of the last features to be carried over and it was drastically simplified in the transition. Before, NPC's had much greater battle context and complex assessments for the ideal skills vs ideal targets. To catch up with 2026, we've performed a major overhaul of NPC AI. We may need to adjust this further as we get more battle feedback (there are over 200 NPCs so sorting out all the potential quirks in one week is impossible), but it should make NPCs more compelling opponents and more intelligent partners.

• RNG Rewrite
  Before: NPCs picked what to do using a mix of random chance and random shuffling. Even when one option was clearly better, there was a real chance the AI would pick something worse just because RNG said so. Healing only kicked in at a flat 30% HP.
  After: NPCs now weigh every possible move, basic attack, skills, healing, shielding, on the same scale based on how much good each one would actually do in the moment. Whichever option scores highest wins. No more coin-flips between an obviously good move and an obviously bad one.
• Optimization
  We also cut out a bunch of duplicate, unnecessary calculations the AI was running behind the scenes. This doesn't change how NPCs behave, but it does make the server work less hard to get there. A necessary change for more complex AI behavior.
• Smarter Targeting
  Before: if an NPC had a single-target skill, it almost always aimed at the same "default" enemy, even if another enemy was an easier target.
  After: the AI now checks every enemy individually for single-target skills and can go after whoever's most vulnerable, instead of always picking the same target out of habit. (This doesn't apply to AOE skills.)
• Heal Plz
  If a partner drops below 25% HP, the AI will prioritize healing them, even if it normally wouldn't bother at that point in a fight, unless the enemy is also nearly dead (under 20% HP), in which case the NPC will go for the killing blow. Basically: heal when the fight's still close, but always take the kill when possible.
• Finish Him!
  Before: the AI only recognized a "finishing move" opportunity based on percentages: if an enemy was below 20% of its own max HP. That meant some low-HP enemies who were actually one hit away from dying didn't get flagged as finishable, and the AI would sometimes heal instead of just ending the fight.
  After: the AI now directly compares how much damage a move would deal against the enemy's actual remaining HP. If a move would likely kill, it gets a big score boost that beats out healing or anything else so NPCs are much better at recognizing "I can end this right now."

TL;DR: NPC enemies and allies used to make randomized choices based on battle condition (current HP/Energy, cooldowns). Now they compare their options directly, recognize real kill opportunities, manage their resources better, and make smarter calls about when to heal versus when to attack in both 1v1 and 2v2 fights.

Quality of Life

• War Leaderboards now allow you to click through to the character page or Faction page of the leaders.
• Factions will allow you to click through to the character page of members.
• Added "Shop" identifier to NPCs on the Map interface that have an available shop
• Inventory and Merchant interfaces now show if items have cores equipped with colors and icons.
• Favorited or Locked items now have icons to indicate status rather than (*) or (x).
• Rearranged Settings options for improved organization.

Thank you for your patience as we work diligently to improve the EpicDuel experience!

Balance

• Overload and Overload (EA) cooldown increased to 2 as an unblockable skill, especially one with stun, is too powerful to leave with 1 cooldown.

Tags: Nightwraith

July 17, 2026

Nightmare in the Desert

Visit CactusChan in the Wasteland outskirts to accept his list of requests to summon his fierce Nightmare form and send that sadistic succulent back to the shadow realm!

Defeating Nightmare CactusChan will yield the following new achievements:

• Nightmare Cactus Conqueror
• Nightmare Cactus Slayer

After we launch a new boss, people frequently ping me to ask who, if anyone, defeated it first. Now there will be no more wondering since we have a Boss Slayer Leaderboard at the Slayer and a new Nightmare boss announcement system! Now, all players will be alerted whenever someone defeats a Nightmare boss. This feature can be disabled by unchecking the "Show Boss Updates" option from the Settings menu.

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Update

TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with the following Sea King items!

• Sea King's Disruptor CC P
• Sea King's Disruptor CC E
• Sea King's Disintegrator CC P
• Sea King's Disintegrator CC E

One in a Million

The next One in a Million achievement has been awarded to xAshx who won a very lucky Juggernaut match.

Next Week

EpicDuel will enhance the Boss Leaderboard with daily boss bounties (earn the most daily defeats of a random boss). Also, NPCs will receive a general upgrade to their AI routines to make them better allies and more threatening opponents!

Tags: Nightwraith

July 10, 2026

This week has been mainly focused on preparation for some very epic releases on the horizon, including a nightmarish rematch against CactusChan!

Passive Queue Adjustment

The new passive queues' 1v1 matching system has been adjusted slightly. It was giving lower level opponents NPC matches before attempting to find a real human match. 

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Update

TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with new CC versions of fan-favorite seasonal rares. This time we're focusing on the Sea King set!

• Sea King's Executioner CC P
• Sea King's Executioner CC E
• Sea King's Star Saber CC P
• Sea King's Star Saber CC E

Seasonal Rares Leaving

Next week on July 16th, all the seasonal rares that were added to the shops last month will be reset to their normal schedule.

Gift Cleanup

Next week Thursday July 16th, the last of the remaining Gifting gifts will be deleted.

Coming Soon!

Prepare yourselves for a rematch against CactusChan! You'll need a friend for this one.

Also, development of the new Technomancer Battlepass is underway!

HeroMart Summer Sale

2026 Summer Mix & Match Buy 3, Get 4th Item FREE Deal! Ends 2026-07-26 11:59 PM EST. Build your own bundle and score big this summer! For a limited time, when you buy any 3 eligible items, you’ll get a 4th item FREE no codes, no hassle. (Bundles do not qualify since they already include a bulk discount) Add 4 qualifying items to your cart, and the discount applies automatically at checkout. & Don’t forget to use your AQW Infinity Kickstarter Thank You Deal! Save 15% with code KICKSTARTER15 at checkout.

Follow this link to learn more!

Tags: Nightwraith

July 06, 2026

Passive Queuing System

This is the most significant change to one of EpicDuel's bedrock systems in a long time. Now, instead of joining a formless void while waiting for battle, you can still move around freely and chat with your friends until a match is found. Certain actions like retraining, changing class, challenging an NPC, and unequipping items will end your queue.

To achieve this, some changes to matchmaking were made, particularly in 2v2, where matchmaking was already very complex. To accomodate this complexity, you will now see "Balancing Teams" text indicating that 4 eligible players have been found based on basic level criteria, but the match is not quite ready to start yet. Sometimes the system will determine that the eligible players are not actually eligible due to previously matching too many times, faction affiliation, or other reasons and the search will continue. The match will stall start after ~45 seconds of no matches if not enough players are found passing all criteria and NPCs will be used to fill the slots as before.

Balance

In to mitigate first strike advantage in 2v2, the starting Brace Bonus has been extended to 3 rounds. The starting Rage bonus has also been increased to 30% in 2v2.

We've reimplemented cost scaling for AOE skills and cores starting a 20% at level 1. However, instead of being a flat cost increase for all levels, the cost increase actually diminishes with more investment, eventually stopping at 7% at level 10.

Sample AOE Skill Cost Progression:
Level   1-target   Multiplier   2-target cost
1        100           1.200           120
2        120           1.186           142
3        140           1.171           164
4        160           1.157           185
5        180           1.143           206
6        200           1.129           226
7        220           1.114           245
8        240           1.100           264
9        260           1.086           282
10      280           1.070           300

To further address the overpowered nature of free AOE cores, an Energy cost of 100 added to:

• Dualism
• Revolver Revolution
• Ultra Obliteration

NPC versions of those 3 skills added to high-level 2v2 NPCs:

• Nightwraith (40)
• Titan (40)
• Big Tuna (38)
• Charfade (40)
• Bido (40)
• Brachylagus (40)
• Rabblefroth (40)
• Exile Soldier (39)
• Legion Soldier (39)
• Transcendence (38)
• Immanence (38)
• Deuce (40)
• Necronaut Clemek (39)
• Necronaut Paz (39)
• Acatriel (40)
• Big Tuna (40)
• Necronaut Clemek (40)
• Necronaut Paz (40)

Buddy Status

Your buddy list with now update with 3 more user statuses including AFK (away from the keyboard), DND (do not disturb), and in-battle. DND will supercede these other statuses.

Also, when unlinking from an ally, your ally will also see a message indicating the link was broken.

Tags: Nightwraith

June 26, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a new All-Time Boss Leaderboard! Jump to the Slayer and discover who the greatest boss breakers on Delta V truly are!

Delta V's Greatest Hunters

Whenever we release a new boss, I'll have several people ping me repeatedly trying to figure out who the first people to defeat it were or if anyone was able to defeat the latest monster at all. No more! For your information and my sanify, I've introduced a new Boss leaderboard available at the Slayer NPC in the Barrens. With several exciting new bosses on the horizon, this feature was more necessary than ever. The new board shows daily and all-time defeat amounts. There are no rewards currently for the daily boards, but all the architecture is in place to expand this feature into something very cool and exciting. Maybe a daily boss bounty to see who could defeat a certain bost the most in one day? Or extra rewards for the first person to defeat an hourly boss? The possibilities are endless!

Mission Reward Boost

Missions offering Arcade Token rewards have been increased to a minimum of 10!

TheAlonzoHarris Shop

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop has been updated with the last of the color-custom Darkeater gear. Put your Balance Tokens to good use and complete your collection!

• Darkeater Consumer CC P
• Darkeater Consumer CC E
• Darkeater Devourer CC P
• Darkeater Devourer CC P

Critical Reconsideration

I had several players bring to my attention that our latest attempts to address critical damage were well-intentioned, but overly complex and confusing, and I agree. I got caught up chasing windmills and trying to be too clever guarding against overly-specific interactions. Thus, the ultimate solution is to simply base all crit calculations on the pre-boosted damage. This accomplishes the initial goal mitigating extreme damage stacking just fine and is easy to understand. As a final guard, these is still a max cap on critical defense ignore of 50.

Below are several scenarios to demonstrate how the new formula works:

Scenario 1 — 115% damage, 30% defense ignore, Massive Strike

• gross damage = 596
• damage = (596 × 1.15) - 220 = 686 - 220 = 466
• ignore % = (30 + 15) = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 220) = 121
• damage post crit = 596 - 121 = 475
• crit damage increase = 475 - 466 = 9
• critMinIncrease = 56
• 9 < 56 → final damage = 466 + 56 = 522

Scenario 2 — 115% damage, 30% defense ignore, Massive Strike + Rage

• gross damage = 596
• defense after rage = 220 - (0.4233 × 220) = 220 - 93 = 127
• damage = 686 - 127 = 559
• ignore % = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 127) = 70
• damage post crit = 596 - 70 = 526
• crit damage increase = 526 - 559 = -33
• -33 < 56 → final damage = 559 + 56 = 615

Scenario 3 — 130% damage, no defense ignore, no Rage

• gross damage = 700
• damage = (700 × 1.30) - 300 = 910 - 300 = 610
• ignore % = (30) = 30
• crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 300) = 210
• damage post crit = 700 - 210 = 490
• crit damage increase = 490 - 610 = -120
• -120 < 56 → final damage = 610 + 56 = 666

Scenario 4 — No damage % increase, 20% defense ignore, Rage 30%, Massive Strike

• gross damage = 700
• defense = (0.80 × 300) = 240
• defense after rage = 240 - (0.30 × 240) = 168
• damage = 700 - 168 = 532
• ignore % = (30 + 15) = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 168) = 92
• damage post crit = 700 - 92 = 608
• crit damage increase = 608 - 532 = 76
• 76 > 56 → final damage = 608

Scenario 5 — No damage % increase, no defense ignore, no rage (baseline crit)

• gross damage = 700
• damage = 700 - 300 = 400
• ignore % = (30) = 30
• crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 300) = 210
• damage post crit = 700 - 210 = 490
• crit damage increase = 490 - 400 = 90
• 90 > 56 → final damage = 490

Hopefully this is the last update to this formula.

Tags: Nightwraith

June 22, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a suprirse Monday release with a small calculation adjustment to Critical damage and 2v2 automatch limits.

2v2 Automatch Limit

To prevent exploitation of predictable 2v2 automatches, we're limiting the hourly automatch to 10. This applies to linked and unlinked matches.

Critical Calculation Adjustment

After reviewing the calculation adjustments from last week, I determined that the battle engine was implementing a superfluous cap for defense ignore since the skill-driven defense ignore is already happening outside crit defense ignore calculations. The 50% cap for crit defense ignore is still in place to be consistent with max Rage defense ignore. The difference is small but noticeable, but better for consistency. Here are 2 examples to demonstrate the new calculations:

Scenario 1 — Adaptive Offense (50% defense ignore, crit)

gross damage = 700
defense = (0.50 × 300) = 150 (skill-driven) defense ignore applied)
damage (normal) = 700 - 150 = 550

// Crit calc (no applied defense ignore):
ignore % = (30 + 0) = 30
adj ignore % = 0.30
crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 150) = 105
damage post crit = 700 - 105 = 595

// Guard check:
damage post crit (595) > damage (550) → guard does NOT trigger
crit damage increase = 595 - 550 = 45
crit min increase = 56
45 < 56 → final damage = 550 + 56 = 606


Scenario 2 — Fire Rain (20% defense ignore, Rage 30%, crit, Massive Strike)

gross damage = 700
defense = (0.80 × 300) = 240 (skill-driven) defense ignore applied)
defense after Rage = 240 - Math.round(0.30 × 240) = 240 - 72 = 168
damage (normal) = 700 - 168 = 532

// Crit calc (no applied defense ignore):
ignore %= (30 + 15) = 45
adj ignore % = 0.45
crit adjusted def = Math.round(0.55 × 168) = 92
damage post crit = 700 - 92 = 608

// Guard check:
damage post crit (608) > damage (532) → guard does NOT trigger
crit damage increase = 608 - 532 = 76
crit min increase = 56
76 > 56 → final damage = 608

Again, the difference is small, but the purpose is the same -- limit the impact of stacked critical boosting skills. 

Tags: Nightwraith