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EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes
 | December 19, 2013 A Legendary Release
Become Legendary Prepare for the most exciting evolution of EpicDuel since Omega! In addition to an impressive new Varium bundle, we're unlocking level 40! But what happens after you reach 40? Level 40 will allow all players to achieve Legendary status! This means you will continue to earn experience toward Legendary ranks, all the way up to 100! Each Rank will allow you to unlock points to invest in new stat categories. This part of Legendary mode is still in development and will be fully-released after the new year. This is partially because we want to make sure enough players have reached level 40 before turning it on, partially time constraints, and partially because of the next major chage to EpicDuel described below!
10x the Balance! Well, maybe 10 times the balance is a bit of an exaggeration, but this release, we're increasing key stats like health, energy, damage, and defense by a multiple of 10. This means that every point of stat investment will have a significant impact on your overall combat effectiveness. It also means that all the EpicDuel Maximum Damage videos are going to be posting some huge numbers!
In addition to looking impressive, multiplying the stats also gives us finer control for balancing skills. We're making all the adjustments we can before we go live, but we're also hoping that all the battling over the holidays up to level 40 will give us good information on further tweaks.
Blood Hawk Battlegear Mega-Bundle This release, we're unveiling the new Blood Hawk Battlegear Mega-Bundle! For the price of one 10k Varium package, you'll be getting 2 Blood Hawk Battlegear Mutating Weapons, 2 Blood Hawk Slayer Swords, 2 Blood Hawk Bots, and, of course, 10,000 Varium.
These weapons will be available in the one-stop Varium shop for a limited time. For those who would rather purchase the items piecemeal, Frysteland Valestra will be stocked with the Blood Hawk items in-game. These awesome items will come with some killer cores! Check them out: Hawk Guardian
This Active Core comes equipped to all the primary Blood Hawk weapons. When your health is critical, summon a wild Blood Hawk to come to your aid and deliver a devastating claw attack to your opponent!
Blood Hawk Claw
This Blood Hawk Bot skill allows you to summon the spirit of the mysterious Frysteland Blood Hawk to deliver a nasty attack with razor-sharp talons.
Armor Annihilator
As a Blood Hawk, use your metallic claws to temporarily disintegrate your opponent's armor!
Kawkaw!
Mega Mutations! This Winter, we decided to have a little fun with our new vehicle selection. Indead of riding a bike, you can actually become one of the creatures below! These designs are fully color-customizeable with entertaining travel animation!
Are you Yeti? How Yeti are you? This year you can be an actual Baby Yeti!
Soar above it all as a Blood Hawk!
Dino Hawks are the ancient precursors to the Blood Hawks. They can't fly, but their strong hind legs allow them to move quickly across the snowy landscape.
The final bike is a more conventional vehicle, concepted by G00ny and Smackey El Frog and vectorized by Charfade! It's powerful treads will allow you to tear through the frozen tundra with ease!
Artix Arcade Bonanza! Ever wished you could take your favorite items from another AE game and use them in EpicDuel? After this release, you'll have your chance as we unveil new Arcade games for AdventureQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, DragonFable, MechQuest, HeroSmash, and OverSoul. By collaborating with the other teams, we've amassed a mighty hoard of legendary weapons!
New Arcade games also mean more Achievements and more leaderboards to dominate. With 6 Arcade prize pools respresenting the biggest AE games, you'll have plenty of reasons to farm Arcade Tokens over the Holidays!
Stylin'! Thanks to the help of Revontheus, we've been able to introduce 30 new Asgardian styles! Alter your looks to resemble a notorious trickster god or a mighty Asgardian warrior.
What more crazy styles will Revontheus create? I have a feeling they have something to do with a moose...
Into the New Year This Legendary release will be our last major release of 2013, but that doesn't mean we're slacking! We already have big plans for 2014, including a tutorial system to welcome and teach new players as well as features to keep the game fresh and exciting for veterans. All the tools we've added to EpicDuel over the years, especially this year, have really streamlined our processes and made delivering feature and content-packed releases easier than ever. We have very high hopes for the future of EpicDuel, and we hope you'll join us in making 2014 Legendary! Happy Juloffenblotten and Frostval from all of your friends at Artix Entertainment! Duel On! Tags: Nightwraith Legends Legendary balance Arcade styles Stats Frysteland Winter Holiday Level 40 upgrade Blood Hawk |
| December 12, 2013 Blood Hawks Inbound
A cold wind is blowing through Frysteland...actually a cold wind is usually blowing through Frysteland, considering its climate and all. ANYWAY! We've got big, BIG plans for this upcoming release, and as I mentioned last week, this release is so big we'll need 2 weeks to build it. That means, unfortunately, no release Friday, but next week will be incredible!
Blood Hawk Battlegear Bundle In the year since Alydriah was expelled form Frysteland by the Endless, the Krampus people have slowly begun to recover. In addition to the human toll Alydriah's cruelty took on the harsh Northern land, many indigenous species were devastated or wiped out by constant battling. One such species is the rare Blood Hawk. These creatures were used for centuries by the Krampus people for hunting and taming yetis. Thought extinct, they have returned in force to once again aid the Krampus people in keeping the cuddly but ferocious creatures in line. Now you will have the opportunity to own the Blood Hawk and the Spectral Hawk (energy variant) along with a host of avian armaments!
The Blood Hawk Battlegear Bundle will be available for a limited time. With this package you will receive:
We realize that the last package offered was not that long ago so we're offering the package items in-game as well. It's definitely a better value to get them all together in the bundle, of course, but if you've got a pile of Varium burning a hole in your pocket...you should probably seek medical attention immediately. If those weapons weren't enough to intrigue you, we have some special surprises in store. Stay tuned for more details!
You're Epic, But Are You...LEGENDARY? Next week, we're raising the level cap to...*drumroll* 40! Rabblefroth is hard at work smoothing the experience curve to make earning levels slightly less painful. But what happens after you reach 40 and max out all your gear? What then? Ponder the great mysteries of the universe? NO! 40 is just the beginning of a much longer journey as an EpicDuel Legend! After a player becomes Legendary, you will continue to earn experience as Legendary experience. Your level will not increase, but you will instead earn Legendary Ranks! Each rank earned will unlock a Legendary point that can be placed in a broad array of stats. These stats will be more specialized than Dexterity or Technology which influence a range of battle attributes. We haven't finalized the list, but we will build as many as we can by next week. The beauty is we can always add more later, unlike the current, more rigid stat list. Legendary players will be defined by a uniquely colored name, an icon in their interface, and several other minor aesthetic changes. We'll have more details as the systems are finalized and polished.
Achievement Overhaul Continued Work on the Achievement Overhaul continues as we wrap up a few features we didn't get to last week, in addition to fixing some minor bugs.
You will also have the option to switch view modes. If you don't like the new, larger style, you can always switch back to a more classically styled view to see more achievements at once.
Titan is also working on a new overall progress bar to see how many Achievements you have total. How close are you to earning them all? If you're close, we're about to make getting them all a bit more difficult with the next feature.
AE Arcade Bonanza! We're going all-out with the Arcade next week, offering several new games based on other AE games. Collect weapons, house items, and other intriguing baubles from MechQuest, HeroSmash, AdventureQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, and MORE! Each of these new games offers a new achievement and a new leaderboard to dominate! To make it easier to acquire Arcade Tokens, we'll be softening the requirements for the daily missions. If you didn't already know, it's possible to earn Tokens from completing daily mission chains. Some can be a bit on the grindy side so we'll try to make it a more pleasurable experience to complete them.
Party Like They Do in Asgard As if everything else mentioned above weren't enough...ED Artist Revontheus is crafting some slick Asgardian styles to spice up this release. What does Asgard have to do with Frysteland? Well, they're basically space vikings and vikings lived in cold climates sooooo...yeah. Asgard!
Tags: Titan Winter Blood Hawk Weapons Items Armors Achievements Legendary Legends Frysteland Birds Varium Level upgrade Stat balance Gear Vehicles Cores Holiday Arcade |
| November 07, 2013 Shameless Self Indulgence
Prepare to party! This week, celebrate the birthday of EpicDuel's resident artist/assassin: Nightwraith. New missions, new weapons, and revamped skills await for your celebratory needs! As if that weren't enough reason to celebrate: the winners of the Creative Carving Contest will be announced in-game at Elon Musk!
Back to Party Business Visit me at my usual haunt in the Wasteland to investigate my stash of weapons and armors! Do you have your OneX6 Keys? No? We've got you covered -- you can either buy one directly or win one by completing a new mission. Be warned: I've been buffed to level 36 so I'm not the pushover I used to be!
The classic birthday missions are also returning, with a few new additions in case you've already completed the old ones. Complete them all for huge rewards!
Suggestion Shop In addition to hunting bounties and weaving baskets, I (Nightwraith) am EpicDuel's lead artist, but I don't mind sharing the spotlight with aspiring artists. That's why we're combining my birthday celebration with the introduction of a new round of suggestion shop weapons, created from ideas submitted from our creative EpicDuel community!
It's been way too long since we've done a shop like this so we're really going all out. We hope to have over 12 new weapons culled from the best of the best suggestions. Charfade and I are working as hard as possible to deliver more, but this is a thoroughly packed release. The weapons are still in progress so check back for a full list of items and their associated artist after we go live. If your suggestion was not selected, that does not mean it was terrible or we hate you -- it just means it may have to wait for the next suggestion shop. Hopefully it won't take a full year to do another one! I wouldn't be surprised if more items enter the game next week!
Arcadia It wouldn't be a proper birthday without a new Arcade Game!
Horrifying! Give it a spin and be the first to claim the grand prize! As with other games, Nightwraith's Nightmare will introduce it's own new evolving achievment and leaderboard!
Cheevo Counter Speaking of achievements -- we now have tracking for many of the daily achievements like the 1v1 and 2v2 automatch daily winners. Players who win the daily achievements multiple times will increment their number on the appropriate achievement.
Active Update To address balance this update, we will be tweaking a few energy numbers from last week's update, but we also have a far grander change in store: Converting all passive skills into active ones.
That means Blood Lust, Reroute, Deadly Aim, Shadow Arts, Adrenaline, and all the Armor skills will be converted into active skills. Blood Lust and Reroute will become Mark of Blood and Battery Backup respectively. The purpose of this change is to add strategy to battle. Currently, passives grant HUGE benefits with little sacrifice, especially for level cap players. Active skills require more sacrifice in terms of energy cost and turn cost. To compensate for these sacrifices, the effects of the skills will be modified. This change will affect all classes so we're really interested to see what new strategies emerge from this change.
Adrenaline
Hybrid Armor, Mineral Armor, and Plasma Armor
Reroute
Deadly Aim
Blood Lust
Shadow Arts
Contest Announcement
When this update goes live, be sure to visit Elon Musk for a list of the winning entries! The effort so far has been stellar with such short notice. We are currently in the process of judging entries and narrowing down the list of finalists! Tags: Titan Nightwraith Suggestion Shop Elon Musk contest Arcade Missions balance Skills Weapons Birthday |
| November 01, 2013 Patch Notes - 1.5.37NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
BALANCE
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| October 31, 2013 Musk Mania Continues
You've done it! The forces of Ebil have been vanquished from Delta V with the help of Elon Musk. This week, enjoy even more spoils of war with new weapons, new home items, balance improvements, new missions, and a new arcade game!
Musk and Ebil Gear! Try your luck at the new Musk Mania arcade game for Musk-tech and Ebil-tech loot not available anywhere else in-game!
Can you win the grand prize?
Pumpkin Hunt! Visit Musk to embark on an epic hunt spanning all of Delta V! Musk is preparing something special for you if you can complete all of his scavenger hunt missions and retrieve all the weird, wild pumpkins from the far corners of the planet!
Be vigilant! Some pumpkins will be harder to find than others!
Home Decor Some of those pumpkins mentioned above, as well as several new Musk and Ebilcorp-themed items will be available as home items for your decorating pleasure!
Not so intimidating now, are you, Chairman?
Balance Another change coming to this Friday's release is a balance update that will specifically address cores. For many builds, it is more useful to use a series of cores than to invest in particular skills and stats. For this reason, we are adding energy costs to many cores. This change will require you to think strategically about reserving enough energy to use all of your cores and necessary skills, adding variety and tactical choice to battle. This is not the last balance change we have in mind, but because it is quite a big change, we could not fit in any other adjustments this week. Look for more farther reaching changes in the coming weeks.
Storefront Cleaning Next week, to refresh the Varium store, we are clearing out the following Varium packages:
Exile package Legion Package Dread Package If you have not already picked up one of these exclusive and powerful packages, now is the time to do so. Next week, they will no longer be available in the Varium store or in-game. Also, the items featured in the packages will be available for resale if you need the extra loot. Again, this change is not happening until NEXT WEEK so you still have another week to pick them up before they're gone! We wanted to announce this a week in advance so it didn't take anyone by surprise! Tags: balance Arcade Weapons Elon Musk SolarCity SpaceX Tesla Nightwraith |
| October 04, 2013 Arcade UpdateValestra's Arcade is getting brand new game with some shiny new prizes!
What could the prizes be? Something nice? Something...hazardous?
Maybe. As with all the other games, there will be a new 5-tier evolving achievement for Hazard Havoc! When we roll the update, hurry up and be the first to Valestra's Arcade to claim your spot on the newest leaderboard! Also, for the first time, we will be offering home items as prizes. "What if I don't have a home?" you might ask. Well, follow me down below for the next paragraph for some great news!
Home Again In this update, everyone is getting access to a Fortune City Efficiency. This single-room living space is designed to give everyone a chance to experience EpicDuel's home feature. Before this update, if you didn't own a home, you had know way to know what items were even available for decoration!
To get this new home, simple click the Home button on the main HUD and click the big black "Claim Home" button. You might also notice that all the homes now have Credit OR Varium options. There are no more mixed currency options. This should make it easier to acquire a home buy either buying Varium outright or saving credits to buy one. We have carried this partially through to the home items. Now, any home item that was previously Varium and Credits will now be just Varium (with a slightly increased price). Tags: Titan Arcade tokens Hazard Bio Hazard Prizes Home Items Homes |
| September 27, 2013 Arcade InboundThe Arcade is nearly here, but before Valestra officially has her Grand-Grand Reopening for her Arcade, I'll walk you through the newly renovated Arcade.
You know Valestra's, right? Fortune City's premiere hangout -- at least before Baelius banished most of the population to an interdimensional prison. If you're new to the game or just never explored much beyond Central Station, you can find Valestra's in Fortune City tucked behind Alydriah's Spire. Don't worry, there's a sign.
Token Time! Once you're in Valestra's you can activate one of many ArcadeBots. You can't miss them -- there's a least one on every screen. An Arcade interface will immediately appear, displaying a game title, prize, list, leaderboard, and buttons for playing / purchasing more Arcade Tokens. One Arcade Token gets you one press of the "GO" button. That's one chance to hit the Jackpot. Even if you miss, you'll leave with something nice. Arcade Tokens are easy enough to come by -- Daily Missions reward one Arcade Token as a reward for completion of the mission chain.
Maybe you don't want to play once. Maybe you want to mash the "GO" button until it shakes the whole Arcade, and all the players around you give you the old shifty eyes look and back away slowly. If that's they case, we appreciate and accommodate your enthusiasm. Each ArcadeBot features an option to buy one Arcade Token or a bundle of ten. Since they don't take up space in your inventory, you can buy as many as you want.
Just be mindful of your Varium balance -- once you hit a winning streak, it might be difficult to stop!
Game Changer Snork's Stash not exciting you? Choose from 3 other games/prize pools buy using the navigational arrows. Each game offers a different assortment of prizes. We look forward to offering many new prize pools in the future with truly unique rewards!
Prizes aren't the only different aspect of each game. Every time you deposit an Arcade Token, you earn a score based on your prize -- the higher the tier (Bronze, Silver, or Gold), the better! All the different games store an individual score based on your success. This score comes with a unique achievement that evolves as your score grows! Currently, we are offering 5 tiers per achievement. Can you level them all?
Each game also features an all-time leaderboard displaying the top scoring players with your current score displayed alongside them.
What are you waiting for? Grab your Arcade Tokens and head over to Valestra's Arcade! You can't win if you don't play! Tags: Arcade Nightwraith Credits Prizes tokens Achievements evolution Games |
| September 19, 2013 Step Right Up 2*Note: Due to events out of our control, we are unexpectedly short-staffed this week. Still, Titan and I will work as hard as we can to release this on Friday. However, if we feel the feature is too lacking in polish or excitement, we will hold it until next week. Thank you for your patience!
You asked for it, and it's back! After a long hiatus, Valestra's Arcade is back in business and eagerly awaiting a flood of players both new and experience! For those of you who don't recall or weren't around, the Arcade used to be a battle mode in which you could deposit Battle Tokens (5 at a time) to join an Arcade Battle. This battle was just like an duel except it offered the chance to earn a prize if you won. The downside was that it was possible to win the duel and not win a prize. This time, you will win a prize for every play. The prize may not be a jackpot every time, but you'll still never walk away empty-handed! Excited yet? Read on to learn more about this revamped feature!
How Do I Arcade? To participate in the Arcade, you must have at least one Arcade Token. This is not a new currency, but is a miscellaneous inventory item. You can acquire them by completing certain Daily Missions or by purchasing them from the ArcadeBots in Valestra's Arcade in Fortune City.
If you're having trouble finding Valestra's Arcade, there will be a link in the What's New page. If you're still lost, then the EpicDuel Wiki has you covered.
Once you're in the Arcade you can click on an ArcadeBot to bring up the Arcade interface. From there, you can play, view your current balance of Arcade Token, or buy more Arcade Tokens. Hitting the "Go" button will cycle through a list of possible prizes. You'll win something each time: it could be credits, a weapon, armor, or even a house! However, to keep the game's Credit economy from exploding, sellback on items won in the Arcade may be reduced from the normal values.
Expansion We're building this feature with expansion in mind. For this release, we will only have one prize pool, but in the future, we plan to include selectable prize pools, allowing you to choose which set of prizes you wish to play for. Another feature that may not be ready for Friday, is an Arcade Leaderboard featuring the all-time winners, complete with an evolving Arcade achievement. This achievement will track the value of your prizes so each time you play, you're basically earning Arcade experience! Even if it's not in-game Friday, we will still be tracking the data!
Our goal with this system is to never make an Arcade play feel wasted, and we believe this additions will make for a truly epic Arcade experience!
Rare Clarification In last week's Design Notes, I mentioned that the Arcade would give you a chance to win retired rares. There was a bit of an outcry from those who were concerned that their own rares would be devalued. I'm happy to say, that you need not worry -- your hard-earned rares will remain rares. We've decided on a happy compromise to introduce Arcade exclusives -- items that can only be won in the Arcade. Some of these items will be revamped or reimaged versions of retired items. This preserved the value of the older rares while giving new players a reason to play! However, items like seasonal rares, limited quantity items, or prize-code items are still up for grabs! Also, legacy items like Founder Armor or Alpha Gear will be excluded for obvious reasons. I hope that addresses your concerns about rares in the Arcade! Tags: Arcade Titan Achievements Missions tokens Leaderboards Prizes Rares Exclusives Varium Valestra |
| September 12, 2013 Going Up!
Are You Ready for a Challenge? After weeks of controlling events from behind the scenes, Administrator 10 and the mysterious Exile Leader are ready to step into the spotlight, and they’re taking matters into their own hands! Team up with a friend to challenge these foes and claim their achievements for your own! These bosses will be some of the most challenging in game, but we’re not without mercy. To make it easier to triumph over these foes, we’re raising the level cap!
Level Up! At long last, we have increased the level cap to 36. It won’t be quick or easy to reach so we’re sure there will be a mad dueling dash to be the first to reach it. The first players to reach this goal will be able to upgrade their gear and skills to become the most powerful duelists on Delta V! Will you be strong enough to defeat Administrator 10 and the Exile Leader?
Daily Missions In between duels, Administrator 10 and the Exile Leader will have some new tasks for you. Check back with them daily for missions and rewards. The missions will be part of a chain so players will need to complete all of them in order to receive the best reward! To keep missions from becoming monotonous, we’ll be cycling in new chains each day to guarantee that there’s always something exciting to do on Delta V!
Arcade Returns!
Remember the Arcade? We haven’t forgotten, and we’re working on implementing a new and improved version next week. Under the new system players will be able to deposit Arcade Tokens for a chance to win anything from a pile of credits, to never-before-seen weapons, to previously retired rares (gasp)! Tags: Nightwraith Missions Daily Level Cap Arcade Prizes Legion exile War Challenge Achievements |
