EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

November 15, 2024

As Gifting 2024 approaches, we are busy preparing content for the big day while updating with some crucial balance changes.

Faction Slot Increase

By popular request we've increased the Faction slot limit from 18 to 20. We have the capability to go higher, but we'll wait and evaluate the response before going higher.

Balance Changes

Thrown Shot : Activates at 35% HP. This is a different threshold from Critical Health (30%).
Crimson Offering : 350 energy -> 300
Infernal Offering: 360 energy -> 310
Hybrid Armor: Max 20% Defense / Resistance -> 15%; starts at 6% at level 1 and goes up to 15% at max level
Mineral Armor: Max 33% -> 25% Defense; starts at 7% at level 1 and goes up to 25% at max level

Coming Next Week!

New Epic Supporter Gifting Achievements

With next week's update, we will update the Epic Supporter 2024 to a special new achievement for the Gifting season, Epic Gifting Supporter 2024 which will be available with the 10,000AP Packages. The 20,000 AP package will come with the new Leg. Epic Gifting Supporter 2024 achievement. These achievements should be exciting for rating point hunters who have already maxed out the 2024 achievements.

Please note: This will only go into effect after the update next Friday! If you buy before then, you will not receive the new achievements.

Additionally, so those who want to support EpicDuel, but cannot afford the largest Varium packages, we're introducing a new evolving achievement to recognize your support: Gifting Supporter 2024. This achievement can be earned by purchasing any 4,000 AP Varium package or higher.

Battlepass Rares Return

Next week, we will also return Battlepass rares that were released this past year. You will be able to visit the Challenger to browse the stock of any items you've missed. We will also add the Battlepass hairstyles to the style picker. As before, styles on the free Battlepass will be available for Credits and Enhanced styles will be available for Varium only.

Seasonal Rares Return

In addition to the Battlepass rares, all seasonal rares will also return next week! This will allow you to get a jump of filling out your item collection before the Gifting crowds arrive!

Tags: Nightwraith

November 08, 2024

New Darkon Weapons!

Visit Darkon for an expanded inventory of new limited-quantity weapons!

• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator P
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator E
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator CC P
• Darkon's Absolute Annihilator CC E
• Darkon's Debris Edge P
• Darkon's Debris Edge E
• Darkon's Debris Edge CC P
• Darkon's Debris Edge CC E
• Darkon's Debris Lance P
• Darkon's Debris Lance E
• Darkon's Debris Lance CC P
• Darkon's Debris Lance CC E
• Darkon's Debris Slicer P
• Darkon's Debris Slicer E
• Darkon's Debris Slicer CC P
• Darkon's Debris Slicer CC E
• Darkon's Debris Dagger P
• Darkon's Debris Dagger E
• Darkon's Debris Dagger CC P
• Darkon's Debris Dagger CC E
• Darkon's Royal Sword P
• Darkon's Royal Sword E
• Darkon's Royal Poleaxe P
• Darkon's Royal Poleaxe E
• Darkon's Royal Spear P
• Darkon's Royal Spear E
• Darkon's Royal Blades P
• Darkon's Royal Blades E
• Darkon's Royal Axe P
• Darkon's Royal Axe E
• Darkon's Royal Staff P
• Darkon's Royal Staff E
• Darkon's Royal Higure P
• Darkon's Royal Higure E
• Darkon's Royal Bow P
• Darkon's Royal Bow E

Party Business

In addition to dozens of new weapons, we've added a new mission to Nightwraith's mission chain "Party Business" called "40." It's not a huge addition, but an important one in the interest of tradition.

Gifting Reminder

Gifting is quickly approaching! We apologize if these reminders are getting tedious, but it's surprising how easy it is some to lose track of time. If you missed them, you can read this year's Gifting megapost here to refresh see a complete list of rules and possible prizes for this year's season.

Tags: Nightwraith

November 01, 2024

We hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween! It's hard to believe it's November and just over a month remains until Gifting 2024! While we work on all the Gifting content, EpicDuel is updating with some adjustments to improve PvP and PvE balance.

Balance Changes

• Terrify / Intimidate: 85 --> 100 Energy; improves with Support
• Energy Parasite: 3 --> 2 turn duration
• Static Smash: 100% --> 90% energy absorption; -20 points each level
• Frenzy: Energy cost increased 15 per each level
• Azrael's Chimera: 50% --> 30% health reduction
• Botanical Wrath: Initial damage : 50 --> 30; 50% --> 30% primary damage
• Incensory: 1 turn warmup
• Bio Borg (Thorns): 4 --> 3 turn duration; 85% --> 65% damage reflection
• Sea King's Spirit: Multi-use --> 1 time use
• Sea King's Spirit (NPC): New core added to Thalyssa; multi-use

Gifting Concierge

This was already posted on the original Gifting Returns 2024 post, but I'll reiterate it again since it's important information for anyone interested in participating in Gifting this year:

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the particants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Be sure to also check the original Gifting Returns 2024 post for new rule and rewards updates!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 25, 2024

As we announced last week, Gifting is returning. If you missed the post, you might want to check it out, even if you're not sure you want to participate in Gifting this year. 

Gifting Concierge

This was already posted on the original Gifting Returns 2024 post, but I'll reiterate it here since it's important information for anyone interested in participating in Gifting this year:

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the particants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Be sure to also check last week's post for new rule and rewards updates!

New Darkon Color Custom Rares

Visit Darkon in his portal realm to access his new stock of limited-quantity color custom rares!

• Darkon's Debris Katana CC P
• Darkon's Debris Katana CC E
• Darkon's Debris Scythe CC P
• Darkon's Debris Scythe CC E
• Darkon's Debris Berserker CC P
• Darkon's Debris Berserker CC E
• Darkon's Debris Spear CC P
• Darkon's Debris Spear CC E
• Darkon's Debris Blades CC P
• Darkon's Debris Blades CC E
• Darkon's Debris Axe CC P
• Darkon's Debris Axe CC E
• Darkon's Debris Staff CC P
• Darkon's Debris Staff CC E

Grab them now while the supply lasts!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 18, 2024

It’s that time of year again: time for an official announcement of Gifting 2024! The new Gifting Even will go live Monday December 9 and last until Monday January 13! This year’s event will include many of the changes we made last year with some additional bonuses! For this post, we will provide a list of updated rules and prizes so please please PLEASE read these changes carefully if you're thinking of participating in Gifting!

Mailbox Bloat

Last year was a very successful event – so successful that the volume of gifts caused the servers to crash every few hours! This year we’re going to try to mitigate that issue with some changes. To start, the possible gifts will be limited to Credits and Arcade Tokens. Items that were formerly in the prize pool will be available for purchase at a holiday shop. While this is less exciting than opening a package to find a new rare item, awarding Credits streamlines the process and prevents inventories from being jammed with thousands of duplicate items.

Rewards

Last year we made some major changes to the Gifting rewards to mitigate the prize creep that accompanied the prize-creation phase post Gifting. This was largely successful as most rewards were fulfilled within a few weeks as opposed to 6 months or a year later. 

This year, we are adding back some previous reward options like hairstyles and replica items. Though the rewards are more generous, please read this section carefully. We don't want anyone to feel disappointed at the end of the event. We also don’t want to engage in any post-Gifting negotiations to find loopholes or other unreasonable requests. Also, this year, like last year, there will be no prize codes provided for the top prize.

The Top 15

The top 15 Gifters in this event will be eligible to receive one Legacy item. Additionally, they will be able to receive an extra Legacy item for each 1,000,000 points past the first 1,000,000. This means that if you end Gifting with a score of over 3,000,000, you would be eligible for 3 Legacy items.

*A Legacy item is any EpicDuel item aside from Founder Armor that is no longer available in-game. It could be something from a phase like the Gamma Bot or a permanent rare like the Bunnyzookas. Participants in the top 15 at the end of the event may choose 1 Legacy item. These items may have light personalized touches to them. A class-changing weapon counts as 1 item.

Please note: Personalizations that include CPU-taxing effects may affect the in-game performance for you and other players. We will try our best to optimize the items, but there are limitations to Flash’s rendering capabilities. Please consider this when conceptualizing your prize.

The #1 Gifter at the end of the event will be eligible for a Legacy item AND a custom item. The custom item grand prize can be an item from any existing category. If it's a category of item that has P and E variants, the opposite variant can be created as a recolor. Customization requests can be refused if they're deemed unreasonable or illegal (copy-written material, offensive, etc...) or if they exceed the limitation of the game (creating excessive lag, too large, too complex). Unlike last year, cores attached the custom item or robot attacks CAN be customized, but their effects in-battle must have in-game equivalents.

Finally, we will be retaining the bonus awarded to the player or players with the most Top Daily Gifter: The option for an additional Legacy item (non-Founder). If there is a tie for the most Top Daily Gifter achievements, the tied players will all receive the bonus.

Founder Armor Rule

As in previous years, those who achieve a Gifting score of at least 1,000,000 AND place in the top 15 may request Founder Armor as a prize. Hypothetically, your score is greater than 1,000,000 but you're still in 16th place, you will unfortunately not be eligible for the Founder Armor. Additionally, though this is a rare scenario, if you place in the top 15, and have the original Founder Achievement, but not the armor, you may request Founder Armor as your Legacy item.

Sharing

A very popular feature of the most recent Gifting Event was the ability to share prizes with a select list of friends. Since there was no restriction, lists quickly got excessive. This year, the top 15 will be permitted to share their rewards with up to 20 other players. This includes custom hairstyles.

If someone wishes to share rewards with more than 20 other players, they may opt to offer their items or styles in-game for a price. They may also choose to have replica items created to be sold in-game while maintaining the uniqueness of the original. These replica items may have very minor changes to distinguish them.

To clarify some questions about this policy, winners may share each reward with 20 other players per item. For example, if someone qualifies for 2 legacy rares, they can share those rares with 20 people per item, potentially up to 40 different people if those items aren't shared with any of the same people.

Finally, this sharing policy does not include winners from past years of Gifting. If you are a past winner and want to share, unfortunately we had to end the sharing about a month ago. Thank you for understanding. 

Reward Efficiency

Last year we had multiple reward systems including a tiered structure based on rank and one based on placement on the Gifting leaderboard. This year, we would like to consolidate the Chest rewards with the score-based rewards. To clarify, there will be no more Gold, Silver, or Bronze Chests: there will only be score-based rewards, like the Cyber Wolf Collection. The new reward tiers will go from scores of 10K to 1 million. We are currently working on concepts for the new reward items with the theme of Alpha-Omega Valkyrie. We hope this change makes it easier to understand exactly what you’re getting for your Gifting contributions.

New Epic Supporter Achievements

Since the Epic Supporter achievements have been active for most of 2024 already, we’d like to refresh these achievements with special variants for Gifting. These new achievements will be introduced late in November to replace the current Epic Supporter achievements for the duration of Gifting. Because the Varium package quantities were so popular, they will remain at their current quantities throughout Gifting.

Reward Summary (updated 10-25-2024):

• Choose carefully! Winners will be restricted to 1 item as a prize. Mutating items and mutating armors count as one item.
• The #1 winner may have a customized core animation with their prize.
• Any top 15 Gifters who exceed a score of 4,000,000 will be eligible to ask for a custom prize, similar to the 1st place reward.
• Top 15 Gifters are eligible for 1 Legacy item with light personal modifications.
• Personalizations may be refused for being excessive in terms of scope or impact on game performance.
• Those in the top 15 may also request a custom hairstyle. This style may be kept as a personal or offered in-game for a price. It can be given to up to 20 other players by request.
• Those in the top 15 may also request an item/achievement transfer from one character they own to another owned character. The number of transfers is equal to the number of legacy items the winner qualifies for.
• Winners may offer their prizes to up to 20 players.
• Replicas are returning! Winners may request replica versions of their prizes to sell in-game. These replica items may have small changes (or none).
• No prize codes will be offered to the winner this year.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item you may also receive an Energy variant and vice versa. For example, if you request the Bunnyzooka, you may also have the Energy Bunnyzooka.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item and the Energy version does not exist, a new Energy version will NOT be created.
• If you request a Physical variant of an item you may NOT request the Energy variant of a completely different weapon.
• Armors do not have P or E variants, but you may NOT request an armor + an item.
• The prize item can be any sword, sidearm, auxiliary, home item, armor, vehicle, mutation, bot, or class-specific item that has ever been available in-game. Founder Armor may be requested as long as the one placing in the top 15 has a score of over 1,000,000.
• The item must have been available in EpicDuel at some time. Items from other AE games are not permitted.
• You may NOT request the custom reward of a Gifting winner from a previous year or this year.
• If your requested item originally included an achievement (i.e. Infernal Slayer), you will NOT also receive the achievement if you request the same item.
• The item may have any core available in-game equipped to it as long as it's of the proper category (i.e. no auxiliary cores on primary weapons, etc...).
• Core graphics and animations for Legacy items will NOT be customized.
• For balance reasons, skills cannot be modified (i.e. additional damage, % effectiveness, cooldown, damage type, cost, etc...).
• Please consider your prize carefully because once the item is in-game, there will be no revisions permitted except for bug fixes. 

We will work with all winners to help create the best rewards possible, but these limitations are necessary to prevent the scope of the rewards from expanding to far and eclipsing the rest of EpicDuel’s development. Last year, all top Gifters were cooperative and understanding of these goals so we hope to continue that trend for this next event. We tried to include as much information as possible for this post, but there still may be more changes (or things we forgot) before Gifting begins.

Gifting Concierge

If you are new to gifting, you might now know that there is a prominent player who has acted as a Gifting concierge for the last several Gifting events. Gifting is typically a very chaotic time in EpicDuel so this role helps to keep major Gifting events from conflicting with each other and depriving the participants of their rightful rewards. You may know him as Smoking Shadow, and if you are interested in hosting a major Gifting event, you will want to get in touch with him:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Tis the Season to Be Wary

Gifting is a joyful time in EpicDuel, but it also brings out nefarious scammers who want to take advantage of other players. Don't risk your account or bank account for a complete stranger online who promises you great rewards or free Varium. Though times and technology change, the old adage holds true: if someone is promising you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is! 

Progress Report

Updates will be slower to arrive leading up to Gifting as we’re preparing the new Battlepass + the new Gifting reward items. To tantalize you, here’s a preview of concepts for the Alpha-Omega Valkyrie set. These are just concepts and not a guarantee of the final rewards.

Tags: Nightwraith

October 11, 2024

New Hallowed Seasonal Rares

Spooky season is here in EpicDuel with returning seasonal rares and brand new seasonal rares available at Bido!

• Bido's Hallowed Greatsword P
• Bido's Hallowed Greatsword E
• Bido's Hallowed Scythe P
• Bido's Hallowed Scythe E
• Bido's Hallowed Blades P
• Bido's Hallowed Blades E
• Bido's Hallowed Axe P
• Bido's Hallowed Axe E
• Bido's Hallowed Staff P
• Bido's Hallowed Staff E
• Bido's Hallowed Spear P
• Bido's Hallowed Spear E

Other seasonal rares are also available at Snork and Caden!

HalloWarrior 4.0

The new HalloWarrior 4.0 achievement is now available from the seasonal section of the achievement shop!

Deltamancer Preview

The Kaiju Slayer Battlepass is still fresh, but the next Battlepass is currently in development. Look for the Deltamancer set to release early in December!

If you haven't started the latest Battlepass, don't worry! You should still have plenty of time to complete the current one before the next goes live (but don't wait too long, of course!).

Tags: Nightwraith

October 04, 2024

The Kaiju Slayer Showcase Battlepass is NOW LIVE! Login now to earn the latest collection of kaiju-themed weapons, armors, morphs, bots, and more crafted with care by Acatriel!

For this season, we're giving those who can only complete the basic Battlepass more opportunities to collect items previously reserved for the Enhanced Battlepass such as robots and color custom items. The Enhanced Battlepass will offer these items sooner, but those dedicated enough can claim them through the Basic Battlepass eventually.

Good luck and happy dueling to reach level 60 of EpicDuel's latest Battlepass season!

So you all know what you're getting into with the new bots available in this season, the skill descriptions are listed below:

• Kaijuzilla P
  • Kaijuzilla Tail Slash P: Physical tail slash with 20% defense ignore.
    Kaijuzilla Nuclear Breath P: Beam dealing 150% MP dmg., 20% MP gain. Target MP recovers 50% over 5 rounds. The idea behind this skill is to act as an MP nuke that hits hard initially, but recovers over time. Initial MP damage is based on actual damage, while recovered MP is based on gross damage so it's possible for the target to eventually recover more MP than was initially taken.
• Kaijuzilla E
  • Kaijuzilla Tail Slash E: Energy tail slash with 20% defense ignore.
  • Kaijuzilla Nuclear Breath E: Beam dealing 150% MP dmg., 20% MP gain. Target MP recovers 50% over 5 rounds. The idea behind this skill is to act as an MP nuke that hits hard initially, but recovers over time. Initial MP damage is based on actual damage, while recovered MP is based on gross damage so it's possible for the target to eventually recover more MP than was initially taken.

Balance Changes

• Cores:
  • Health Booster: 350 HP -- > 400 HP
  • Energy Storm: Single use
  • Tranquility: 450 HP -- > 550 HP
• Blood Mage:
  • Fire Scythe: 105% damage ---> 110% damage
  • Energy Parasite: Depletes initial 150 Energy instead of 50 Energy
• Tech Mage:
  • Malfunction: Improves with Dexterity instead of Support
  • Assimilation: 85% damage
• Tactical Mercenary:
  • Toxic Grenade: Improves with Strength instead of Support
  • Crippling Strike: 115% damage

Other Changes

• NPC-only skills now available for 20,000 Credits.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 20, 2024

Progress Report

This week has been a busy one keeping up with requests to distribute Gifting items while working on the new Battlepass, but we're finally ready to announce the launch date for the next BP: The Kaiju Slayer Battlepass will launch Friday, October 4th. If you're still grinding through it or haven't started yet, you still have time to complete the current Nanotech Nightmare showcase!

Balance Changes

With this update, EpicDuel has ungone a massive update to item stats. We are essentially reverting the change made years ago that allows someone to allocate all points into one stat when upgrading and item. Previously, the limit was 40% of the stats available stats for an update. While this update was certainly interesting and changed balance dynamics, it led to out-of-control stat stacking. To revert this change, we will have to do a few major changes to roll back to the old system. Please pay attention, because this will probably affect you!

1. All upgraded items will be reset to 0 stats. This is inconvenient, especially if you've upgraded 100s of items, but it is the only way to do this change.

2. All items will be unlocked to the current level of their owner. This will allow all affected items to be upgraded for 100 Credits.

3. Everyone level 15 and over will be given 25,000 Credits to allow them to upgrade their items with minimal additional cost.

We apologize for this inconvenience, but this update will allow us to limit the impact of stat stacking going forward.

After logging in after this update, remember to update your equipped items so you can redistribute their stats before you battle!

Other core changes that have been implemented:

• Unbreakable heart: +45->+30
• Unbreakable Spirit: +45 -> +30
• Eternal Protection: +20 -> +15

Tags: Nightwraith

September 13, 2024

EpicDuel's latest update contains core/robot balance changes, war item influence changes, and new achievements, but it's only a appetizer for the main course: the Kaiju Slayer Battlepass which will be releasing at the end of September/early October.

War Item Influence Boost

War Bomb influence has been increased to a 50 point base (42-57 range) for regular drops. This should make using war items more impactful on influence scores while making super war items much more powerful.

Friday the 13th Returns

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

Achievements

The following achievements have been added to the achievement shop:

• Big Show 2024
• Friday The 13th 2024

These new achievements will appear in the Seasonal section of the achievement shop for a limited time.

Balance Changes

Phantasm Blast: 25% Energy damage, increasing by 5% per turn, max 50%

Pyro Fly: Take any random active skill instead of just top 3

infernal Offering: 2 --> 1 turn duration (initial MP gain on use + 1 additional turn), increase mana from 150 to 180

infernal Prism: 3 --> 2 turn duration

Remember, you only have a few weeks left to complete the Nanotech Nightmare Battlepass before it's replaced with the Kaiju Slayer!

Tags: Nightwraith

September 06, 2024

EpicDuel is back with a new addition to its ArcadeBots: Jaguar Warrior! Will you be the first to claim all the new gear and reach the top of the Arcade's leaderboard?

NEW Jaguar Warrior Arcade

Seek out your nearest ArcadeBot (many are concentrated in Valestra's shop in Fortune City) to play the latest Arcade game: Jaguar Warrior! Use your Arcade Tokens to win the 20 new prizes!

• Jaguar Warrior Armor A
• Jaguar Warrior Armor B
• Jaguar Warrior Armor A CC
• Jaguar Warrior Armor B CC
• Jaguar Warrior Sword P
• Jaguar Warrior Sword E
• Jaguar Warrior Sword CC P
• Jaguar Warrior Sword CC E
• Macuahuitl P
• Macuahuitl E
• Jaguar Warrior Blades P
• Jaguar Warrior Blades E
• Jaguar Warrior Axe P
• Jaguar Warrior Axe E
• Jaguar Warrior Staff P
• Jaguar Warrior Staff E
• Jaguar Warrior Gun P
• Jaguar Warrior Gun E
• Jaguar Warrior Bow P
• Jaguar Warrior Bow E

Since this is a new Arcade game, it also comes with a new evolving achievement. Spend those Tokens to max out the new achievement to level 20! As you accumulate more rating points, you'll creep ever closer to the 10 new rating tiers!

Jaguar Warrior Styles

To complement the new Jaguar Warrior gear, we've added styles 805 - 810 to the style shop! Check them out to complete your look!

Tags: Nightwraith

August 28, 2024

This post is a blunt reminder of the new consequences of cheating, plus an important message about the 2023 Gifting perks and account security.

Updated Consequences of Cheating

Awhile ago, EpicDuel implemented a policy of resetting wins as a punishment for repeat offenders who attempt to cheat to boost their wins. Apparently, that policy was not nearly severe enough because we still saw repeat offenders who continue to cheat even after a reset. To escalate the penalty for multiple infractions of cheating, effective immediately, in addition to having wins reset in the battle mode in which the cheating occurred, there will be 3 additional punishments.

• The first change is that the wins from the battle mode that was reset will be subtracted from the main win tracking achievement. For example, if the character has 1000 Juggernaut wins reset, 1000 points would be deducted for their achievement.
• Second, the achievements that track 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut wins for each class will be deleted based on which battle mode was reset. For example, if Juggernaut wins were reset for a character, their Juggernaut class achievements would be removed.
• Third, since Influence is a character stat earned from wins, the character's personal Influence would be reduced based on the proportion of the wins that were reduced.

This may seem severe, but that is precisely the intention! Hopefully these additional consequences will give pause to anyone considering cheating in the future. Again, these new punishments are in effect immediately.

Gifting Perk Cutoff

One of the perks of this past year's Gifting event was awarding prizes to a select group of friends. Generously, or perhaps foolishly, I did not establish a limit on either the number of friends or how long this offer would remain open. I have noticed an uptick in reports about people attempting to scam Gifters by abusing this offer so I feel it is now necessary for a hard deadline. Friday, September 20th will be the final day for awarding Gifting prizes to friends for this past Gifting season. If you don't read or care about Design Notes posts, but still ask about sharing items after the cutoff, your request will be politely denied.

Scam Alert

As the holidays approach, this is also a good space to remind you all about account safety and protecting yourself from scams. If you don't remember when you last changed your password, now is a great time to do so. Also, make sure you are the sole owner of your account. A common way to lose control of your account is account sharing. Not only is it against the Terms of Service, but it also puts your account at great risk of being stolen and eventually disabled. If you use a public or shared computer to play EpicDuel, always fully close the launcher or browser window the game is being played on, and avoid using the "save login info" feature.

Protecting your account can be as simple as following a few rules: DO NOT share your password. DO NOT share your account. DO NOT try to sell accounts or items outside the game. The classic advice still applies: If someone offers you something that seems too good to be true, it probably is!

Tags: Nightwraith

August 23, 2024

Extra Achievement Update

This latest update features new tiers for some existing achievements, plus a new evolving achievement to complement the new gem achievements added last week. Those who already meet or exceed the new tiers will be updated manually. To update your Archivist achievement, you will simply need to have your gear re-appraised by an NPC that offers this service such as Charfade.

• Daily Solo Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
• Daily Team Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
• Juggernaut: Expanded to Tier 10
• Daily Prize Champion: Expanded to Tier 10
• World Domination: Expanded to Tier 11
• Rising Star: Expanded to Tier 10
• Archivist: Expanded to Tier 21
• Black Diamond: Evolves up to Tier 20.

New Legendary Rank Leaderboard 

By popular request, we have added a new Leaderboard to track All-Time Legendary Ranks.

Character Page Changes

The Character Pages have been updated to correct an error that was causing some items to not load correctly on the character. This bug mainly affected players with extremely large inventories. This is because the query that loads the items on the character was written back when the inventory cap was much, much smaller than it is today. To help clean up the Character Page and accommodate the added items, Home Items and Missions Completed have been removed from the page. 

Balance Changes

• Force Field: Replaced with Energy Shield
• Critical Heal (Armor): Activates at any HP --> Activates below 25% HP
• Frost Revenant Retribution P/E: 100% damage --> 85% damage
• Acorn Annihilator: 35% --> 40% robot damage as MP poison; multi-use --> single-use

Jaguar Warrior Arcade Preview

Acatriel is cooking up some awesome new art for an upcoming Jaguar Warrior Arcade game that will be available within the next few weeks!

Tags: Nightwraith

August 16, 2024

New Evolving Gemstone Achievements

To help players invest their excess Credits accumulated over the years, we've introduced 6 new evolving achievements, each upgradeable to level 20. This amounts to thousands of Rating Points. A fair trade for a few million Credits! 

• Raw Ruby
• Raw Topaz
• Raw Sapphire
• Raw Emerald
• Raw Amethyst
• Raw Diamond

We may need some extra rating star levels after these are maxed out!

NPC-Only Cores

With this update we are introducing new NPC-only cores. These cores, while mostly identical to the correspondingly-named cores already in-game, can only be used in NPC-only battle modes. These modes include 1v1 NPC, 1v1 Boss, 2v1 Boss, and Simulation. Unlike their PvP counterparts, these cores are multi-use with 4-turn cooldowns:

• Exsanguinating Shield (NPC): Available at Azrael
• Flagellation (NPC): : Available at The Challenger
• Chained Blood (NPC) Available at The Challenger
• Feast of Flesh (NPC): Available at Alydroid
• Titan's Shroud (NPC): Available at Titan
• Hardened Armor (NPC): Available at Deuce
• Infernal Surge (NPC): Available at Kraggor
• Draconic Frost King's Will (NPC): Available at Titan

If you struggled against EpicDuel's toughest bosses in the past, these new cores might be just what you need to take them down!

Note: These cores will still be disabled in PvP battle modes even if your opponent is an NPC! For example, if you are matched with an NPC in 1v1 automatch mode, the cores will still be disabled.

New Bido Core

This update also introduces a new core available at Bido!

• Bido's Bitters: Weak poison (5 HP per turn) that prevents stronger poisoning for 4 turns.

This core could be useful for countering heavy poison builds. Note: This core will not block poison attacks from NPCs.

Tags: Nightwraith

August 09, 2024

Bido's Birthday Gear

We've finally adding a long-awaited update to EpicDuel artist Bido's Birthday shop! We know we're later than usual, but better late than never! Pay Bido a visit in his Afterlife perch to browse his latest limited-quantity rares.

• Bido's Venom Greatsword P
• Bido's Venom Greatsword E
• Bido's Venom Blade P
• Bido's Venom Blade E
• Bido's Venom Scythe P
• Bido's Venom Scythe E
• Bido's Venom Glaives P
• Bido's Venom Glaives E
• Bido's Venom Axe P
• Bido's Venom Axe E
• Bido's Venom Staff P
• Bido's Venom Staff E
• Bido's Venom Dagger P
• Bido's Venom Dagger E

We've also re-added the Bido weapons to the PvP drop pool that are necessary for completing his collection missions.

New Achievements

This update is also bringing several new NFTeaser Achievements. Remember NFTs? Such a time capsule of 2020-2021, which, to my mind, feels like it was simultaneously 5 months ago and 50 years ago. Anyway, these new themed achievements should provide a quick boost of the big Credit spenders out there. This isn't the last batch of Credit sink achievements so don't spend them all in one place!

• Titan's NFTeaser
• Rabblefroth's NFTeaser
• Charfade's NFTeaser
• Big Tuna's NFTeaser
• Cinderella's NFTeaser
• Acatriel's NFTeaser
• YOLOScythe's NFTeaser
• Baelius' NFTeaser

Tags: Nightwraith

August 01, 2024

There's no update this week, but we do have a quick rundown of what is currently being worked on this month!

Kaiju Slayer Battlepass Preview

The Nanotech Nightmare Showcase is barely a week old, but the next Battlepass is already underway. This new showcase developed by Acatriel is inspired by a particularly famous radioactive movie monster. This Battlepass is expected to go live by the end of September or early October, and we plan to add in-game text with an exact release date when the update is locked-in so nobody forgets to claim their prizes. 

Bido's Birthday Shop

AQW and EpicDuel artist Bido is currently working on a new birthday set to bolster his current shop. It's been lonely on his perch in the Afterlife and he'd love some more people to stop by to help him celebrate!

New Evolving Achievements

In addition to the next Battlepass, we're also working on an assortment of new evolving achievements to allow those with massive Credit surpluses to boost their ratings while adding to their extensive achievement collections.

PvE-Only Skills

One challenge with balancing skill cores is that a skill that's extremely effective against bosses might also be incredibly overpowered against human opponents. We're currently working on a way for skills to be flagged for PvE-only, meaning they would only be active against bosses and 1v1 NPC challenge battles. The PvE skills would still be disabled in regular PvP modes like 1v1/2v2 automatch and Juggernaut, even if the matched opponent(s) happens to be an NPC.

This could theoretically be reversed to make certain skills PvP-only, but that's an addition to consider later when the PvE cores are finally integrated.

Tags: Nightwraith