EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

February 28, 2013

We are already on the cusp of the second week of the Golden Yeti Tournament and the competition is extremely fierce! There is still one more week to go so don't give up yet! Any breaks the leaders take is a chance for latecomers to swoop in a snatch one of the top 100 spots!

Do you see your name up there? Congratulations! But be afraid! Those top positions may be difficult to secure as the tournament continues!

New Cores!

Need some diversity in your build? Gear up with 3 new cores this Friday!

Nanosteel Armor: Critical hits getting you down? This passive armor core effectively reduces the damage reduction of all critical hits inflicted on your character!

*Dead Battery: Applies a curse to an enemy that causes that target's remaining energy to go to you if the enemy is defeated while the curse is active. This means that if you apply the curse to an enemy, and they still have 20 energy after dying, that energy is added to your own pool!* This works even if your ally is the one to defeat the target.

*Dead Battery still requires some more testing, but we do not wish to push the release any later. We will continue testing this core after the release and hopefully make it available next week!

Plasma Meteor: Meteor shower just got an energy damage based equivalent!

Sneaky, Sneaky Azrael

For those that missed it last week, we introduced two new Azrael Scythes last week on the Alydroid. These were limited quantity, so of course they sold out very quickly. This Friday, we will restock twice (depending on demand). Once at 10 AM EST, and again at 5 PM EST. We will also restock the Dage rares at these times. We will only restock if the quantities are depleted.

EpicDuel Turns Four!

It’s hard to believe that four years ago EpicDuel had just launched it’s first public Alpha. It’s even harder to comprehend how the game has changed since this momentous event. In that time, we’ve joined with Artix Entertainment, gone through four development phases, released thousands of weapons, developed countless features, and hosted over 100 million battles. Now we are in the midst of the most exciting evolution in EpicDuel’s history: Omega!

Mod Application Deadline

The application deadline is almost upon us, but it's not too late to submit! Please send your COMPLETE application before 12 P.M. E.S.T. this Friday (March 1st) to: EDCallForMods@artix.com

Lycus and Cinderella are still hard at work narrowing down the list of qualified applicants, but unfortunately, due to the volume of mail, we will not be able to respond to all of you to explain why you were not selected. 

Balance and Bugs

To round out the release, we're making some adjustments to balance, targeting the rise in power of Support builds and some more tweaks to help classes that are underperforming. We have some larger changes in mind to help with balance, but we don't want to do anything too drastic while the Tournament is still live.

There will also be a number of crucial bug fixes. For a complete, detailed list of the fixes and changes, check Rabble's patch notes shortly after the release goes live!

Coming Soon!

This guy.

Tags: Nightwraith Azrael Tournament Yeti Leaderboard Cores Omega LQS balance Bug Fixes Endless Moderators

October 24, 2012

In my part of the world, the leaves are changing, cool air is blowing on one’s face, everyone’s wearing (or, if you’re me, knitting) sweaters hats and gloves, and everything is pumpkin-flavored. Yes, it’s autumnn, and with the cool weather comes Nature’s bounty: a harvest. Delta V’s Harvest Festival is also soon approaching, with the return of last year’s Harvest content. This includes missions, the Harvest Husk, and the Harvest Reaper and Soul Reaper. These powerful limited rare mutating weapons include a 13% chance to attack your enemy with a rain of gourdy pain with the Jack O Fire skill!

The Harvest is also pulling up some new Harvest content, such as the Cardboard Crusader. This armor will be available for credits... though you probably shouldn’t wear it outside in the rain.

To commemorate the Harvest of Souls, Snork is forging an item commemorating his people’s history. What is it? Well, he hasn’t told me, but he did say that the most valiant warriors who can prove themselves in armed combat with him will have a chance to hold this mysterious rare item!

Oh My Gourd!

The amazing Charfade just revealed that she's created a big ol' pile of pumkins for your home decorating pleasure! Get your home ready for Trick and/or Treating this Friday!

I Can Has Suggestions, Plz? 

But that’s not all! After sifting through the bounty of awesome player suggestions, the Player Suggestion Shop will once again be open! Everyone whose item was chosen will receive their item in their inventory (regardless of cost, level, or class) and the Epic Artist achievement!*

*Massive apologies, but the Player Suggestion Shop will take a bit more time to finish. We tried to work through some technical difficulties, but ultimately couldn't finish it for today. We will have it out next Wednesday, fittingly enough, for Halloween! Stay tuned for more previews on Nightwraith's Twitter.

Spooooooky Countdown! 

The Spooky Head contest is still going on, but you’re running out of time- the contest ends this Friday, just before midnight Saturday. More details here: http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=20723387

A Balanced Diet

Speaking of the forums, you may have noticed that, rather than cramming all balance discussions into one topic in EDGD, we’ve implemented a Balance Discussion subforum in the EpicDuel section of the AEF. If you’ve been on the fence about joining the AEF, now seems to be the best time to do so! http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tt.asp?forumid=415

Cover Your Torso!

As the cold autumn winds start to blow, now is the perfect time to acquire some coverings for your torsos! To help with this, HeroMart is introducing a new shirt to commemorate our 10 Year Anniversary as a company. Among the bonuses this shirt will give in the other games, in EpicDuel you will receive an exclusive sword, Artix's Triumph.  

Stats

Level: 30
Damage: 32
Strength Req: 30
Dexterity Req: 30
Technology Req: 30
Support Req: 0
Strength +: 2
Dexterity +: 10
Technology +: 10
Support +: 2

Something About a Dragon?

In addition to new shirts, HeroMart will also be stocking One-Eyed Doll's latest Album, "Something About a Dragon" which includes music from AE's games! 

As an in-game reward for purchasing the CD, in EpicDuel you will receive both One-Eyed Axes!  If you missed them in-game, this is the perfect opportunity to pick them up! If you already have them, you'll still have an awesome CD and two weapons you can resell for bonus currency!

Onward! To Victory!

So, what’s next? After this week, we’ll be plunging into building the next phase of EpicDuel, along with a pretty cool winter event (will it involve yetis? Quite possibly!) and Nightwraith promised to have some preview art up for you guys. Obviously, we’re all very excited about this prospect and we hope our players will be as well! :D

Revamped Mercenary concept by Thyton!

Tags: Cinderella Fall Autumn harvest balance Rabble Forums pumpkin Halloween Cardboard Crusader Snork Missions Seasons suggestions Shirts HeroMart

May 23, 2012

Hey there, EpicDuelists! It’s that time of week again: time for a heaping helping of fresh-baked Design Notes! Yum, yum! Hopefully Nightwraith won’t eat this batch before we’ve got everything down- I’d better get right to it, as he’s gnawing on the corner while I’m typing.

Memorial Day/LQS

In the United States, Memorial Day is celebrated in remembrance of American war dead, and we would like to thank our courageous men and women currently serving and have served to protect us.

To honor all heroes, we are introducing a seasonal Heroic Memorial Achievement, worth 1500 Rating Points that can be picked up from any VendBot.

Like many holidays in the US, it has another meaning: the unofficial beginning of summer! Warm, blue skies, beautiful sunshine... so how are we going to spend it? Indoors, in front of a computer, of course! For Memorial Day Weekend only, players will be able to grab the very first level 35 weapon, the Infernal Slayer Sword.  Kraggor's people are expert jewelcrafters and miners and have created a weapon of immense power and beauty.

The Infernal Slayer sword is crafted from the finest electrified crystals, forged in magma for beauty and strength. Silas Auer, Legion Administrator and old enemy of the Lawman, has acquired 1500 of these weapons to finance his role in the coming war. Visit this mysterious new character deep within the Infernal Mines to acquire one of these destructive works of art before they're gone forever!

Refinery Rundown

We’ll finally be opening up the Refinery, and introducing new d00ds, and along with that, two alignment-specific quest chains. Players should start at the Infernal Infiltration “Third Officers” (ie. Legion players should start at Nightwraith and Exile players should start at Galatea) for instructions on how to navigate the mine tunnels. Be sure to read the Mission Complete text carefully, as these won’t be easy, and will be filled with riddles. Your ultimate reward will be a blueprint scrap, which eventually will unlock special alignment goodies!

We’ll be looking for ways to avoid even the appearance of “punishing” loyalty, so in the end, if you switch alignment for these specific mission chains, all you’ll end up with is a handful of credits and an extra blueprint scrap you can’t use. So, really, it’s not worth it.

Cappity Cappity

During the war, which will be waged in earnest in the coming weeks, we’ll also be raising the level cap to 35, which should be good news for those at or near level 34. Not there yet? It’s the perfect time to become acquainted with Power Hour (10am and 10pm EST)!

Blood Commander

This week, we will be giving Mercenaries a small buff in the form of an upgraded version of Field Commander, Blood Commander, which will add a small % of life steal along with the strength buff.  This new skill will not stack with normal Field Commander or Blood Lust.  Tactical Mercenaries will retain Field Commander unchanged.

Carry All

For those whose inventories are about to burst, we have a solution.  We're allowing players to purchase up to 150 slots of inventory space, which should be more than enough space for all the goodies that you'll find during the upcoming War!

EpicDuel Artists Livestream

As we typically do once a month, on Sunday May 27th at 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, the EpicDuel developers will be hosting a livestream on the EpicDuel Artists Livestream channel. This will be a great opportunity to ask your burning questions about the upcoming war event! Last time I’m pretty sure we almost broke Livestream... can we do it again? Not sure what could possibly top the Derp Owl, but we’ll certainly try!

Question Mark or Comma?

A couple weeks ago, I was in the woods, and I happened to see a really beautiful trio of butterflies. I’d actually never seen this particular kind before, and I was very excited. Until I went to identify them: the butterflies I saw could be members of one of two similar, related species the Question Mark and the Eastern Comma.

Both butterflies are members of the family Nymphialidae, which means that their front legs are reduced, giving them the appearance of only having four legs, and puts them in the same family as the charismatic Monarch butterfly. The main difference between the two, from what I could find, is that the Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis) and the Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma) is that the former is slightly redder. I do, however, believe this to be a Question Mark. Both species are kind of unique as the adults are not nectar feeders, but eat mineralized water, tree sap, or carrion.

Tags: Cinderella Memorial Day balance Summer Infernal Infiltration War Sword LTS livestream Missions

March 20, 2012

Hi there Epic Duelists! I had the awesome idea of writing design notes from my phone (or rather I was bored during my office hours; if you are my student: visit meeeeeeee!) so please forgive any devious Auto Corrects. This update is going to be pretty story heavy, so those of you who like story are in for a treat (warning: contains me).


Bunny Battles

Over the past week, thanks to your assistance, Mr. Cottontail has been able to construct two rabbit Battle Suits: one for leporid Capensis and one for the Captain Brachylagus. However, the suit lacks an on board computer system; Mr. Cottontail needs the assistance of his colleague -- fan-beloved character Ulysses to program the suits. Mr. Cottontail has informed Ulysses that you will be more than happy to assist him in anything is needs.

This quest line also takes you around to other sciencey-type people all over Delta V... For Science!

Beautified

Nightwraith isn't going to just be busy with everything I'm giving him for the missions (and there is quite a bit) but several screens are also getting a facelift this week. No longer will these areas be stuck in the recesses of 2009!

Getting Buff

As you know, the Mercenary class was scheduled to receive a buff, but that didn't happen then. But this is not then, it is now! Mercenaries will be receiving a new passive skill affecting rage. I don't have all the details yet, so keep watching this space for more info!

My Fair Lady

A new (to you) face being introduced this update is Ulysses' lovely companion Galatea. After Ulysses lost his eyes in the Incident, surgeon and laser enthusiast (a diamond is a girl's best friend when it's being used to focus a plasma beam) replaced them for him free of charge. Since then, she has remained loyal to the inventor and grew to become the Apple of his cybernetic eye.

What Gall!

A gall is a fleshy outcropping of plant material, usually caused by an insect or fungal parasite, although parasitic plants such as mistletoe can cause galls on the host. Insects that cause galls form them as microhabitats, and the gall provides protection, a starchy food source and a home for the insect. Typically, gall-forming insects live in the gall as larvae and emerge as adults, although this is not necessarily the case in eusocial gall aphids. Insects that cause galls include gall wasps, gall midges, gall flies, and gall aphids. I just learned today that mites, small arachnids closely related to spiders, also form galls in black cherry.

Call for Mods

We have so many qualified applicants for the available positions! The call is still open, but just a reminder: we are not looking for developers, just mods and testers. Any applications lacking a resume/CV will not be accepted, nor will any applications submitted by those under the age of eighteen.

Tags: Cinderella balance Mercenaries Bunnies War Missions Achievements Ulysses Mythology

March 14, 2012

Hippity Hoppity

Welcome to another Design Notes, EpicDuelists. As I announced on Facebook, we’ve got a lot of exciting things on the horizon for you! We’ve all been super-hard at work these past few weeks, getting stuff prepared for this and the coming weeks.

Rabble Rabble Rabble

RabbleFroth recently got back from the Game Developer’s Conference, the largest annual gathering of professional game developers, and he’s filled to the brim with ideas for how to improve our little game! He’s been working on a few different things that are being released this week. First on the agenda is a revamped leveling curve. Experience gains by level will make more sense for middle levels, although low and high level players won’t see much change. Along with the revamped leveling curve, weapons will be getting a balance to reflect a more consistent increase in power and value across all levels (eg. pricing, resale, requirements, bonus, damages). This is a major undertaking and may take several weeks to complete.

In addition to weapons balancing, the Mercenary class will also be receiving a buff of some kind. According to RabbleFroth's balance data, Mercenaries are having a great deal of trouble at the level cap in 1v1 battles. We've heard many complaints that Blood Shield is not useful enough, so we may be improving it or possible replacing it with a new, more useful skill.

Coming Attractions!

RabbleFroth isn’t the only programmer who’s been hard at work. Titan is releasing several bug fixes, including a bug with the Baby Yeti and a weird faction chat bug. In the coming weeks, we’re moving from CS3 to CS5 (yay Modernization!) to make things better for all of us, and combatting the ever-raging Lag Monster. This may sound like an easy task, but anyone who has developed for Flash knows that it is very picky when it comes to which version you are using, so a lot of the code that worked in CS3 simply will not work in CS5, and the software does little to indicate why. 

We’ll also be replacing the somewhat vague“Power Up!” button on the lost battle screen with helpful tips and tricks to end their losing streak!

The Bionic Battalion Cometh!

The bunnies have escaped from the Biological Preserve, but not every rabbit is a dumb bunny. Several of the rabbits have achieved sentience, and need your help to achieve their plans. These adorable creatures are not seeking world domination, destruction, or greatness- merely answers.

The first rabbit you’ll meet is Brachylagus, the Lagomorph Captain. The first of the rabbits to realize sentience, he is the driving force behind this ragtag group of superintelligent space rabbits. After determining to find others like himself, he was able to find several clever individuals: his lieutenant Myxoma, the strong and loyal Capensis, the gentle Lepus, and the genius Mr. Cottontail.

Brachylagus can be found in Central Station, but you’ll have to search all over Delta V for the other four, as they were separated when all of the rabbits escaped.

Shamrocks from Heaven!

There's now so much green on Delta V, that it's reached critical levels!  That means PvP drops will include, for a limited time, Emeralds of varying quality to redeem at any vendor for mega loot!

On the Silk Road

The Silkworm Bombyx mori is the larval form of the domesticated silkmoth. The moth was domesticated from a wild silkworm species and is completely dependent upon humans for survival. This species is completely reproductively isolated from wild populations and cannot reproduce on its own nor does it have any antipredator defenses, as they’ve been selected exclusively for their silk.

The silk itself comes from a cocoon the caterpillar spins over itself as it pupates. Typically, the silk is retrieved by boiling the cocoons, which kills the pupa. Alternatively, certain types of wild silk can be produced from wild silk moths or tussock moths (from family Saturniidae or Lymantridiae) that have eclosed from their pupae, thus negating the need to kill the pupa. This kind of silk is often called Ahimsa silk, but is not always as desirable, since the silk threads are cut when the insect emerges.

Call for Moderators!

We saved the best for last! With EpicDuel’s continued growth and expansion, we’ll need a few more people to join our team! Here’s a message from Nightwraith about it:

Want to be a mod? Want to spend hours a day not getting paid while helping your fellow players, catching cheaters, hackers, scammers and muting people who use abusive language?

If you answered YES to either of these questions, then you should probably check yourself into the nearest psychiatric hospital as soon as you can, but I also have exciting news for you.

We are looking for new mods / testers for EpicDuel, and now is your chance to apply! One thing we needs to stress - you MUST be over 18 year old. If you are under 18, if you don't include your age, or if you start with "I'm not 18 yet, but..." the application will not be considered.

What they need you to included in your email is:

1. Your real name, age, and country of residence.

2. EpicDuel Game account name and email address

3. Forum account name and email address if one is entered. (not required to have one)

4. Languages you speak/read

5. C.V. (Resume) *please note we'd like the CV in English.

Please send your COMPLETE application to beamod@battleon.com . If the application is not complete, we will toss it out. And please - one application per person.

We will read all the applications. If you are chosen to go through a further interview, we will contact you. Unfortunately, they cannot reply to everyone. If you do not hear from us, sorry.

Tags: Titan Bionic Battalion Bunnies Green Emeralds St. Patrick's Day balance RabbleFroth GDC Moderators

February 29, 2012

This post only exists every 4 years

Geez, don’t take me so literally. I don’t constantly put hidden meaning into every syllable I type.

Happy Leap Day, players! Happy Birthday to all of you whose calendar age is 1/4 their chronological age. We’ve got some awesome stuff in store for you this week, so let’s say we jump right on in! (har dee har har)

Please, don’t leave me...

The Heartbreaker saga has come to its, well, heartbreaking conclusion. Players should go to the Guard Outpost in Fortune City to see how your plans turned out. I don’t want to spoil it for you guys, so you’ll just have to report to the Outpost to watch the cutscene.

Since we’ve concluded the Heartbreaker Saga, these missions will be going rare, as well as the Frysteland Aftermath missions, so now is the time to get those in if you haven’t done so already.

New Promotional Pack!

By popular demand (yes, Facebook fans, I’ve seen your constant posts and tweets begging for a new promo pack and “WHEN NEW PROMO PACK? ANSWER NOW!”), the Heartbreaker/Azrael promotional pack, along with all the other Heartbreaker-themed weapons will be going out NEXT week, so players still have another week to purchase this amazing item package.

The Celtic Cleaver, with its "Lucky Strike" skill, and all the other Celtic items from last year are coming back next week as well. What luck!

If it ain’t broke...

Due to the overwhelming popularity of PvP drops, we’re planning to add 50 more broken items! These broken items can be fixed by Ulysses for a mere fraction of the original varium cost, and these new weapons go all the way up to level 33! By Grabthar’s hammer, what a savings!

Balance Changes

A wild Tech Mage appears! Rabblefroth uses Balance Changes. It’s Super Effective!

The balance changes for low-level Tech Mages seemed to work really well, so this week we’re focusing on addressing balance at higher levels. Go Rabblefroth! :D

There goes the neighborhood...

If you follow me (@Cinderella_ED) or Nightwraith (@Nightwraith_ED) on Twitter, you may have seen us conversing with two of the NPCs, specifically Lysander Cox/the NegaWraith (@Negawraith_ED) and Alydriah Descarl (@AllWillObey). If you tweet, feel free to follow all of us on Twitter! In addition, if you haven’t already, “like” us on Facebook at facebook.com/EpicDuelOfficial

Drink! :D

This week’s Insect Fact is based on a brand spanking new paper (seriously, it was just published 10 days ago), so I’m super-excited about this. Endoparasitism by parasitoid wasps is a huge mortality factor for insect larvae across taxa, and insect species have various ways to combat parasitoid infection. One hypothesis for how insects combat parasitoids is the “nasty host hypothesis”, wherein in addition to normal immune response (insects do not have adaptive immune responses like we do, but they do have an immune system that allows them to fend off infection and encapsulate parasites) insects larvae are able to sequester allelochemicals from their host plants and sequester them in their hemolymph and body fat, which poisons the parasites. In the case of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, fly larvae that are exposed to ethanol are not parasitized as often by wasps, and when larvae are infected, consumption of ethanol causes increased death of the wasp larvae. Also, after infection, the fly larvae will search for sources of ethanol to consume. Infected fly larvae are twice as likely to survive parasitism by a generalist parasitoid after consuming ethanol than those that did not, indicating that the fly is self-medicating with ethanol. This is not the first time that this has been observed- flies infected with bacteria will give themselves fevers by seeking out heat sources to kill the bacterial infection.

Tags: Cinderella Leap Day balance promotional package Twitter Nightwraith NegaWraith Heartbreaker alydriah

February 08, 2012

Welcome to another week, my EpicDuel droogies! This week’s going to be a little short on content, but big on features that all players should find something to their liking!

Drip Drip Drop!

Starting on Friday, EpicDuel will feature PvP drops. Essentially, every PvP battle in EpicDuel will work like an arcade battle, and every time you defeat one of your friends (or a complete stranger), you’ll have a chance at adding something nice to your inventory. It could be a weapon, it could be a gem, it could be a useless tin can... it is a mystery! Who knows what your opponents could be hiding?

Inventory Clearance

We’re not implementing stackable items yet, unfortunately, but Mission Items like the Skull Card, or special items you get for missions will no longer count toward your inventory space. This should benefit players, especially low-level non-varium players who have had to find ways to clear out enough space for mission items. With gem drops, one could stockpile a little treasure with this update...

The Realtor

We’ll be making improvements to the Housing system in EpicDuel, starting with the presence of a Realtor. Due to the increase in the housing market since the Exiles started returning to Delta V, there is an increasing demand for Realtors, who are able to lead customers through the benefits and risks of purchasing real property. One man, known simply as Mr. Alexander (or “Raymus” as it says on his deskplate) has stepped up to the challenge. Visit his office to learn more!

Heartbreaker Continued

We’re not continuing the Heartbreaker Saga this week, but be prepared for new faces (maybe someone who the exiles can use to their advantage?) and more chances to use that infinite mission item inventory space!

Teh Fixed!

Here is a comprehensive list of some of the minor fixes and features in this update!

Bad Aftertaste

Some insects store the toxic chemicals from the food they eat in their body fat, which makes them poisonous.  Think about the Monarch Butterfly caterpillar, a Nymph butterfly that is the classic example of this system.  It eats milkweed and stores the iridoid compounds from the plant on its body fat which makes the caterpillar nasty and poisonous. Insects that sequester toxins from their diet, such as caterpillars in the family Nymphalidae do so as a protection from predators. However, this leaves them open to parasitic and viral infection.

:3^^^>

Tags: Cinderella drops PvP bug facts Heartbreaker balance Finderbot Fixes Raymus

January 25, 2012

The end of the Frysteland saga, that is! As the War comes to a close, I want to congratulate each of you who participated and made the Frysteland war a success! Remember that your actions determined the outcome of the War for Frysteland, and influenced the storyline as a whole. I’ll be posting an addendum with the official announcement of the alignment winner, along with a description of the missions you’ll have to complete to discover how this arc concludes.

What's gonna happen to these little guys? You'll find out soon!!!

We’ll probably be revisiting these characters in a future arc, and I know some of you were interested in the mythology. Frysteland will remain open all year to visitors from all over Delta V, whether you're seeking conquest, information, or riches.

Since this marks the end of this particular story arc, we’ll be implementing the Aftermath missions, and making changes to the Frysteland screens to reflect the aftermath of the Frysteland conflict.

Also, all the seasonal rare frost weapons will be leaving for another year, possibly taken by the mysterious Titanfraggr for unknown reasons.

Traitors

I would like to confirm that an individual cannot have both the Legion’s Bane achievement and the Krampus Slayer achievement. Players who switched alignment to earn both achievements will lose the second achievement earned. So, if you killed 100 Krampus for the Krampus Slayer achievement, then switched to Exile to kill 100 Yeti and get the Legion’s Bane achievement, you would only get to keep the Krampus Slayer achievement.

This situation showed us that we need to overhaul the war system for the next epic war event to encourage loyalty, and punish treason more severely.

Broken Hearts

Following the Frysteland arc, we will be starting with the next EpicDuel story arc. As Alydriah was distracted by the conflict in Frysteland, the Exiles in Old Fortune City seized this opportunity to plan a counterattack at the Heart of Alydriah’s operations. Not much more I can tell you right now, except that this arc won’t hold back- it’s the darkest thing I’ve written for EpicDuel so far; I hope you are prepared for it!

With this story arc, we’ll be implementing a NEW Promotional pack to replace the Frost Destroyers. This promo which will be going live Friday will include Azrael Borg and Azrael's Curse. The Azrael Borg is a robotic wasp does that physical damage, and has the special ability to sting your enemy with it's unblockable serrated tail and deliver a Heart Attack!  Well, technically it's not a real heart attack, but it does drastically reduce the effectiveness of any applied buffs on your opponent.  It also has a physical primary attack in which it uses it's razor-sharp heart blades to give your opponents more than a broken heart!

The second part of the promo is the awesome mutating weapon, Azrael's Curse! This potent physical weapon forged as a warped marriage of technology and magic carries the Mark of Azrael, which offers a +5% chance to crit!

Tags: Cinderella balance Frysteland Yeti Azrael Curse Skill War Heartbreaker Valentine's Day Promotion Weapons

January 04, 2012

An Epic New Year!

Welcome back, EpicDuelists. I hope you all had a great holiday and had a great time ringing in the New Year of 2012! The staff is back in the office, and are all grateful for the time spent with friends and family during this holiday season. Now that we’re refreshed, we’re ready to begin the Final Phase of the Frysteland War!

Frysteland Final Phase

EpicDuel’s first war is approaching the final stretch, and your allies will need everyone pulling together to assure victory! I know you guys have all been working diligently- as of the writing of these design notes, over 15,000 unique characters have competed in the Frysteland War! There have been real-life wars with fewer participants! You guys have all done a magnificent job, so regardless of which side prevails, you all deserve to be commended for your efforts!

However, the war is not quite over. To bring that final push, we’ll be releasing the long-promised missions, along with the War Bosses, Commander Edgar Boothe fighting for the Legion, and King Alaric fighting for the Krampus! Could this final phase turn the tide? Only one way to find out!

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King Alaric the Technologically Inept is a fair and just warrior-king. Known as the Child-King, Alaric rose to power during the Uprising at the age of 15, following his father Callan the Decent’s death during the Haze of Iwona. Under the tutelage of his great-aunt Aldhagrimm the Erudite, he’s grown to follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, the great King Andra the Merciful, who was murdered by Baelius.

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We’re coming down to the wire here, people! If you’re Exile, don’t let those yetis down! If you are Legion, do not disappoint your leader!

There, I fixed it!

We’ve received a few complaints about blue stars not showing up on character pages, and we’ll be fixing that as soon as possible! We’ll also be fixing the issues of duplicate achievements, and war achievements not updating correctly.

Balance Update!

The following is a brief rundown of the balance changes that will be implemented in the next release.  We're still in the process of testing them, so this list is subject to change!

• TLM - Replace Maul with Stun Grenade
  • Keeps stun skill; removes easy, low cost damage skill
• TLM - Replace Hybrid Armor with Mineral Armor (New skill - passively gives physical defense)
  • Reduces inherent tankiness of TLM
• TLM - Replace Technician with Blood Shield
  • Reduces ability to be more tanky + increase damage output + heal
• CH - Replace Technician with Plasma Armor (passively gives energy resistance)
  • Gives them a reliable passive with better defensive options
• Bunker Buster/Plasma Canno
  • Weaker at lower levels, stronger scaling for high levels
• BM - Replace Technician with Energy Shield
  • Gives BM higher energy resistance
• Artillery Strike - Remove stat requirement
  • Bring it in line with other multis
• Improve Fireball & Plasma bolt
  • Slightly weaker early levels, scales much better mid-high levels
• Slightly reduce passive Armor skills’ defense/resistance
  • Evens out scaling per skill level, make it slightly less powerful

A Winner is You!

Congratulations to all of you who entered the First Ever EpicDuel Holiday House Decorating Contest! The following characters’ houses have been judged by the staff and testing team (the judges are: Charfade, Practel, Ashari, Illuminator, Lycus, and ME!) Using a super-secret method that we are not allowed to discuss under penalty of noogie, the following in-game characters have been selected for the sweet prize of an achievement and home item!

In no particular order:

Elf Priest Jzaanu for “EpicRestaurante A la Duel”

Smackie El Frog for “Smackie goes BOOM!”

Buffy A. Summers for “Home For the Holidays”

Invicticus for “Santa’s Humble Abode”

Sparticus for “My ED FAMILY and HANDS ACROSS ED PROJECT”

VIX for “VIX’s BOMB for Christmas!”

ManThong for “Happy Holidays Legionnaires!!”

G00NY for “In Excess”

Sergei Petrovich for “Seasons Greetings”

Mokta 3 for “The Hope and Joys of Christmas”

Dr Jekyll for “Only One Shovel!”

BadWitch for “Is the season to be jolly :)”

Santa ClawZz for “A house full of wishes!”

AVA for “Happy Holidays”

Appleeno for “Christmas Morning”

African Warrior for “All Welcomed”

Basicball for “Basically Basicballs Barrens Base”

Battle Elf for “December 24th!”

Captain Notorious for “Santa Claus Apartment”

Azht3b.Bethza for “StreetWorrion Street for Eve”

Prizes will be visible on the next Server restart! If you see your name up here but did not receive your prizes, please let us know!

Tags: Cinderella Frysteland balance Bugs New Year contest Legion exile War

November 08, 2011

A Delicious Part of Your Balanced Breakfast

We meet again, EpicDuelists. How did you like our Monday update? I hope you’re enjoying the new quests, low-level bazookas, and Guy Fawkes masks all the cool kids are wearing. And we have more stuff ready to come your way this week!

So, let’s get right on down to our milk and cereal!

You’re older than you’ve ever been, and now you’re even older...

So have you figured out what’s so special about this Friday? Besides that it’s all 11’s? Why, it’s Nightwraith’s birthday, of course! Our wonderful creative lead Nightwraith is older than he’s ever been, and he’s celebrating it with you! Some of the denizens of Delta V- the ElectroHazard, Hank, Charfade, Big Tuna and Cinderella, to be exact- have teamed up to throw our fearless creative leader a surprise party! Between mischievous squidlings running off with his presents, a backlog of orders of exactly 11 slices of cake and other misadventures, battling Nightwraith will give players an 11% chance of a dropped item, the OneX6 Key, which unlocks Nightwraith’s personal stash!

Level 34! Limited time only seasonal rares!

This release is a bit more complicated than most.  In order to access Nightwraith's personal stash, available in the new ArmoryBots across Delta V, you'll need to collect the OneX6 Key.

You can obtain this key as an 11% drop from Nightwraith if you accept the OneX6 Key mission, or purchase it from him outright.

This is just one of many ArmoryBots across Delta V in the Barrens, Fortune City, Central Station, the Biological Preserve, and the Minetower.  They all have the same inventory, but we felt it would keep screen populations down to have more options.

Portuguese Support

You may have seen that part of the delay of the last update involved incorporating support for Portuguese into EpicDuel as a step towards making our game friendlier for our International Player Community. Titan and Hudelf will be working on translation, localization, and special characters. The system they are building is especially exciting because it will make adding additional languages in the future very easy, and provide a template for localizing the other AE games! Hopefully we won’t lose visuals on our text. Again. D:

The Arctic Guard

Baelius’s presence is felt all over Delta V, including its frigid and mountainous Northern Continent. Protecting both the miners working in the dangerous conditions- including the great carnivorous Beasts as well as Delta V’s indigenous mountain people- and Baelius’s interests are the Arctic Guard, specially trained soldiers who are well prepared to deal with the frigid temperatures the Northlands offer.

The leader of the Arctic Guard is one Arctic Outpost Commander Edgar Boothe. As a young man, Boothe rapidly rose to prominence in the Shadow Guard. Perhaps because of his tactical skills, or maybe because of his handsome appearance, he quickly caught the eye of Alydriah Descarl. She assigned him a command position in the frozen Northlands- something about it just seemed... right.

Commander Boothe is one of the characters you’ll be interacting with closely during the winter event, as well as helping to shape his destiny.

Balance Adjustments

We’re still planning on readjusting the Tactical Mercenary skill tree, but due to the addition of support for Portuguese language, I’m told it is unlikely to be released this week.

I can confirm adjustments to Frenzy and Smoke Screen. Following this update, Smoke Screen will now have a Support requirement. Frenzy should be a little less powerful after this update, as the healing factor will no longer take into account the damage adjustment, which was what we intended in the first place, but it was not working correctly for some reason. The practical effect of this is that Frenzy will heal you for less than it did before.

New Identity

I'd also like to make a quick announcement that our Mod and tester formerly known as Rainaka, is now known officially as Lycus!  His green name should update by the new release!

Paper or Plastic?

Certain social wasps build their nests out of cellulose fiber that’s been wetted and crushed, then reconstituted (a material known better to you as “paper”). The families of wasp that do so are the yellowjackets and paper wasps.

 Members of the genus Polistes are the most common and recognizable type of paper wasp. The European paper wasp is often mistaken for a yellowjacket, due to the similar yellow and black coloration. However, they can be distinguished from yellowjackets due to their more slender figures and long legs which dangle distinctively during flight. Colonies are founded by a single female or a small group of often, though not exclusively, related females. The foundress lays her eggs directly into the hexagonal cells of the nest, and she and her sisters will feed the emerging larvae by regurgitating masticated caterpillar flesh. In the early summer, workers emerge and co-foundresses are often exiled to found their own nests. Males emerge from the broods during the reproductive phase of the colony, along with reproductive females, and colonial cohesion breaks down, with intercolonial aggression increasing. Over the winter, the colony huddles together in a hibernative state.

One type of paper wasp, the Mexican Honey Wasp, is one of the only insects other than bees that produce honey. These dark golden-brown and yellow wasps construct paper nests and produce honey from plant nectar in the same fashion as honeybees. This honey is the larvae’s sole food source and is also consumed by humans, although the nectar from some plants can result in the honey being toxic.

Tags: Titan 11-11-11 Nightwraith Cinderella Missions balance Portuguese Achievements Loot

October 13, 2011

Boo!

Hi there, EpicDuelists! Hope I didn’t scare you! With Halloween just around the corner, we have some scary and sweet things in store for all you players! This Harvest Festival (which will involve several updates) should be full of yummy treats for players (and only a few tricks ;3 ).

First, some Treats!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or the ArtixEntertainment forums, you know that, due to my wide creative streak, my talent for wordsmithing, or (most likely) my willingness to work a full-time job for no money (seriously, guys, you can at least subsidize my caffeine habit), I have inherited the storyline of EpicDuel. We haven’t had a designated writer for the game in quite a while, and having a writer means that things like story arcs, plot lines, and missions will be coming out at a faster rate.

My first assignment was to write a few missions for EpicDuel's Harvest Festival, and players will be able to complete several new quests, with unique attributes and special rewards!

Most of these quests have to do with the Candy Harvest. An amalgamation of harvest tradition from the colonists’ home planets, young citizens of Delta V were encouraged to wear masks and collect candy from their friends and neighbors. The giving of sweets represents the sharing of joys in life, the masks represent generosity to all, regardless of who they are to you, and prosperity. All players, including low level players, will be able to visit Steve 1.0 in Central Station to earn a unique achievement, or visit Brunson outside the Mine Tower to collect some ingredients for his Mama’s Pumpkin Pie.

There are sweet treats for our higher-level players as well! Collect some candy from several shopkeepers for Naomi Page in exchange for a handsome sum of Battle Tokens!

But not all is light and sweetness. The indigenous people of Delta V celebrate the Harvest Festival very differently- as the Harvest of Souls. Delta V’s native people believe that the souls of the dead can only enter the Afterlife one day a year. The living collect and display bones and all other things dark and distressing, along with brightly-colored flowers, rich clothes and delicious food. This juxtaposition of the frightening with the familiar is both to celebrate the lives of those who passed during the year as well as to ease the dead into the Afterlife.

The weapons dealer beneath the Mine Tower is a member of Delta V’s native people, and hides his identity behind a mask depicting the indigenous War God, Snortivit, from whom he takes the name “Snork”. In exchange for a certain amount of won battles, Snork may be convinced to part with one of his special designs, a valuable and rare weapon, exclusively available from this quest!

I’m super excited to get started on some longer story arcs, fleshing out the world’s mythos, and working with Nightwraith to bring the characters to life!

Stay tuned for more supernaturally awesome quests next week!

Tricksy Playerses...

In addition to all of those things listed above, you’ll be able to trick your friends by hiding behind one of 30 (!) new hairstyles!  There are credit only and credit + Varium styles!

Also, Hudelf has something in his bag of tricks for you- the retrain revamp is HOPEFULLY being released! I know many of the players were getting impatient, but it ended up needing a little more care.  We'll see if the EpicDuel programming team can work some miracles tomorrow!

We’ll be continuing with balance updates, including a slight revamp to the Tactical Mercenary skill tree in the coming weeks. I know many of our players were upset by the addition of requirements to the Tactical Mercenary skill tree, but when 40% of high level players are playing as one class, and defenses of the class reveal that there are only a handful of highly-specific builds that can defeat one build of the class (while being completely weak to any other build the class can put together), there’s something wrong with the class. Which class one choses should not determine the winner before the battle has even begun.

As for the revamp of Feld Medic, we determined that support and Field Medic were being abused to a point which was frustrating and painfully unfair to other builds. However, we are going to look at the speed at which the skill improves with level, and see if we need to make it improve faster.

With the new adjustments, we’ll also be reexamining the level range for Juggernaut battles for future releases.

*** Stay tuned for more Harvest releases as we move into the month of October! ***

They Might be Giants in AQW

To celebrate AQW’s third birthday, AQW is running a special event with special guests They Might be Giants! On October 14th, Join Us for a very special two-week event “The Collector”. The Collector collects special people before their greatest moments, from not only Lore but other worlds as well (maybe someone from Delta V?) Read more about it on the Event Page and the AQW Design Notes!

They Call Me Doctor Worm

Good Morning! How are you? I’m Doctor Worm!

Insects and worms are often studied together (being abundant invertebrates), so this week, we’ll be talking about Earthworms! Earthworms belong to the class Oligochaeta in phylum Annelida (round, segmented worms). Their bodies mainly consist of a tubular digestive system surrounded by a muscular outer body formed of segments. They move by means of waves of muscular contractions to shorten and lengthen the body. They are covered with tiny bristles that act as claws, allowing them to tunnel through soil- which, along with decaying plant matter, make up their diet. Worms have a variable number of “hearts” (technically aortic arches) which pump blood through their simple closed circulatory system. They do not have separate sexes, and baby worms reach adulthood within one year. Worms live for 4-8 years in the wild.

An interesting attribute about worms is their ability to regenerate lost segments, and it is theoretically possible to grow two whole worms from a worm cut in half. 

Tags: Cinderella TMBG retrain balance styles Halloween harvest Missions Achievements Weapons

August 12, 2011

Flash Fight 2000

Just when we thought we were making some good progress in improving EpicDuel's performance, Adobe swoops in and releases a sneaky, ninja update to Flash Player of their own that is just crushing animation performance in EpicDuel.  Titan is talking with Adobe to find a solution to the problem, but it may take some time, especially if the problem is on their end.

We first noticed this while playing EpicDuel on Chrome, which installs the latest version of Flash Player (10.3.183.5) automatically (convenient, right?).  Firefox and Internet Explorer worked fine until we updated Flash Player on them.  

Until this issue is resolved, you may want to try a different browser without the latest version of Flash Player, or try uninstalling Flash Player and then installing an earlier version of the program.  We apologize for the inconvenience, but this issue seems to be beyond our ability to control.  Such is the double-edged sword of Flash game development.

Balance Update

With this release we are rebalancing all skills that have fixed effects by adding a improvement faction based on level.  This includes buffs, debuffs, shields, damage dealing skills that have fixed damage, and a few other skills that see limited use at higher levels.  The net result of this is that all skills affected will be slightly weaker at lower levels and stronger at higher levels.    

For those who want a complete list of affected skills, here it is:

Because of this huge, sweeping change, and because we've spent so much time combatting Flash's performance issues, we have decided not to raise the level cap this week.

ADDENDUM (red means important!)

Due to the unexpected performance problems form Flash Player and the extensive nature of the balance changes, we have decided to postpone the release until next week (mid week) to include more thoroughly tested balance changes and actual content.  We'll be usuing this weekend for additional balance testing in addition to solving the Flash Player issue.  Again, we apologize for the inconvenience, but this time it wasn't actually our fault!

Tags: Nightwraith flash player adobe balance lag

August 10, 2011

Those of you who frequent the forum were treated to a post from our Fearless Leader, Titan. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here’s his post in its entirety:

For those who are wondering what the changes made on Friday and over the weekend actually were, I am here to enlighten you.

What it means for you is a variety of exciting possibilities. I’ve installed several structural changes as promised in EpicDuel Delta that will make new features possible. Prior to this update, many of the major features were what I would classify in the “overwhelming difficult to build” category because of limitations caused by the design of the game code. After spending loads of hours rethinking and retooling the engine, you can expect big expansions to the game at a rate faster than you’ve seen since we launched.

Some of these features include new armor types (not just for player, but also for NPCs), larger more meaningful factions, tournament brackets, larger buddy lists and group chats, item banks, improved retraining system, and additions to the storyline that will push the faction war to new limits.

Thousands of lines of code were updated to work more dynamically over the weekend... this means faster development times for new features in the future. When it comes to adding things like new drops, prizes, armors, weapons, etc, it’s now a much faster process for us. Instead of having to define an item id in 15+ different places, we can now more rapidly create content that simply works! This is an empowering change for Nightwraith and Charfade as they’ll be able to more easily add content without the need for additional coding assistance.

These are all ways in which we can now improve the game for you, and though balance changes had to wait until this week, the options now available to us for new features, and items is vast. Overall, this week’s progress, though it may not look big content wise, has been a very big step! We would like to thank you all for understanding, and hope you enjoy the exciting features and items these changes will allow us to release!

Plus, an added benefit that hopefully most of you are finding is an improvement in server response times... faster gameplay means more battles, more fun, and more EPIC!

As always, the entire EpicDuel staff is dedicated to making a fun gameplay experience for everyone, whether it’s Titan actually coding the game, or Charfade and Nightwraith drawing the in-game content, or my team balancing, testing, and disciplining the game, or me with the varied things I do for the game (writing the DNs, some of the writings on the website and in-game are my doing, I run the Facebook, etc.) We are working hard to improve the game, Dear Players, and I hope that hearing it directly from Titan reassures you of that fact.

Balance Changes

I announced last week that we were prepared to roll live with several proposed balance changes, including adjustments to set-damage skills (such as Plasma Grenade or Overload), which could either buff or nerf the skills depending on your current build.  Factoring in character’s level with set-damage skills will establish a more fair range of damage for the skill, and allow us extend the usefulness of skills that are often overlooked at the higher levels.  This level based improvement formula. can also be extended to buffs and debuffs.  We will even be able to control the rate at which certain skills improve to prevent them from becoming UPed or OPed at higher levels.

As always, we’re concerned with improving balance and making the game more fun, for all of our players, and some of these balance changes should help to bridge the gap between paid and unpaid players. It’s always been a tricky situation for us to maintain balance, and the battle is never over.  However, with changes like these, we feel we’re taking steps in the right direction.

In addition, we’re talking about raising the level cap to 34, so both paid and free members will have something to which they can look forward!

Insect Fact of the Week

If you’ve gone down through the mines, you’ve likely met Insectoid mine worker Kraggor. Kraggor’s people are modeled after real-life eusocial insects. In these creatures, which include members of the orders Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps), and Isoptera (termites). Eusociality is characterized by a colony being “ruled” by a Queen, who is the mother of the colony, and has a very strict division of labor. The workers, such as Kraggor, in this type of system are always the Queen’s daughters or sisters, who perform upkeep tasks, building, food gathering, and caring for the young. Males in these colonies are soldiers when they live in the colony, although in the case of termites, many colonies have both a King and a Queen.

Some species of gall-forming aphids or thrips (order Hemiptera, or True Bugs) display a type of eusociality where non-reproductive members of the gall become soldiers, who protect the young.

Tags: Cinderella balance Titan code lag performance

August 03, 2011

Hi there EpicDuelists! It’s that time of the week again, time to let you know what’s on our agendas for this week!

Balance Changes

Last week I promised that we’d implement some balance changes soon, and we’re finally ready to release the planned balance changes!

Here’s what we’ve confirmed:

• Static Charge gets a buff, no longer being reduced by the enemy’s defenses when calculating the energy gain (similar to Atom Smasher)
• Slight nerf to robots, now using either the robot’s attack or its special ability will send both options into cooldown
• Buff to Plasma Rain, and Multi-Shot as they will now improve with each 4 points invested in Technology or Dexterity (to match Artillery Strike)
• Fixed Damage skills will now improve with your character’s level
• Percentage based skills (Berzerker, Bludgeon, Double Strike, Massacre) will now work like Deadly Aim, applying to the relevant equipped item instead of the entire attack amount

This is not meant to be the “be-all, end-all” Ultimate Solution to Balance, but as I’ve said before, we’d rather go in with a scalpel than a sledgehammer. The improved scaling with cast spells required Titan to program a new scaling system, which is a big reason for the delay.  This list is subject to last minute changes as testing progresses!

Code Improvements

We’ve managed to fix a few bugs, including one where removing a buddy does not unlink you as allies, one of the sources of lag (hung battles), and a few bugs on our moderator tools.

I’ve also been getting a lot of questions as to why we haven’t implemented more bots into the game, or added more dynamic options (such as battle pets) to the game. The system that bots currently use needed fixing, and Titan is currently building a better system for robots, as well as several other new useful features. We like building new features, and it’s really fulfilling to be able to set the ground work.

New Banners!

Charfade’s back from her holiday, and she’s been working on giving the webpage a facelift. I’m not sure when this’ll go up, so I don’t know it has gone up or not when you’re reading this. If it has, good job Charfade! If it hasn’t, also good job, but not as enthusiastically.

LQS Restock

As stated in last week's DNs, we plan on restocking the Telsa and Lady Tesla Armors once again with the new release on Friday.  This restock will be small, but we'll try to give everyone who missed out on it last week a chance to grab it! This is the last guaranteed restock.  After this weekend, restocks, if they happen, will be very small and entirely random.  We want to provide a fair chance to as many players as possible to grab the LQS items, but we also want to retain rarity and value of the item for those who were lucky enough to grab it immediately.

More?

We'll see what we can squeeze in before the end of the week!  Could be anything!

Now we’re E/I!

Not really, but when I asked on Twitter how the players would respond if I started putting an “Insect Fact of the Week” on the Design Notes, the response was overwhelmingly positive. So, this feature will be a regular occurrence!

Here are a couple facts about insect maturity!

When insects mature, they molt- that is, shed their exoskeletons- until they are mature. The developmental stage between each molt is called an “instar”. Since insects do not molt after reaching maturity, the term “instar” only refers to larval or nymphal forms of the insect.

The process of maturing in insects is called “metamorphosis”. Homometabolous insects undergo complete metamorphosis, where the larva forms a pupa, and undergoes a dramatic change. You know about this if you’ve ever seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Hemimetabolous insects go from a nymph to an adult through gradual changes, and the nymph often resembles the adult. An example of this kind of insect would be a dragonfly.

Tags: Cinderella balance Bug Fixes bug facts charfade

July 21, 2011

*Pro-Tip*

EpicDuel's new URL will be http://epicduel.artix.com/play-now/  
Redirects should be working shortly, but you may want to update your Bookmarks as well!

High-Wire Balancing Act

Well, it appears that we all know that EpicDuel crashed this weekend. For those of you who are fans of EpicDuel on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, you already know that the crash was not just EpicDuel, but AdventureQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, MechQuest and DragonFable (essentially everybody but HeroSmash was affected by the crash). Titan ended up having to re-publish the entire game from a coffeeshop! I want to personally thank all of our players for bearing with us and waiting patiently while AE was essentially down.

The crash was related to load balancer, and fortunately we’ll be able to avoid this problem in the future since we’re moving the games to Artix subdomains! We’ve also been working on patching up some exploits and bugs, which is why we have been restarting the live game throughout the week. If you still see exploits being used, please give us as much detail as possible- knowing exactly what’s going on helps us find the problem so Titan can fix it! 

We will likely be restarting once again today (Thursday) to install more fixes, but the content and balance updateswill be released tomorrow.

Balance Updates

After taking the feedback from the most recent update, we are continuing to tweak balance among the new and old classes.  We have not settled on specifics yet, but it seems Cyber Hunters and Blood Mages are still comparatively underpowered and we will make changes to address that.  There are tons of suggestions for balance right now, some more drastic than others, but at this point we would rather approach balance with a scalpel than a sledgehammer.

*Update* Complications in the dev server have forced us to push the balance update to the next week since the changes weren't thoroughly tested.

NEW STUFF!

It's time again for another round of armors.  Shed your current battle-worn exterior and try something new!  Nightwraith’s been working on a few new armors for the non-varium crowd, including the new City Guard Armor, the Imperial Tech Mage and the Exile Soldier Armor! Visit Naomi in Central Station to check them out!

Special AQWorlds Musical Event Featuring ArcAttack!

We’re aiming for to release earlier on Friday because we’ll probably be playing AQW on Friday, July 22 at 6 PM EST! Rounding out the DoomWood Saga in AQW will be the musical stylings of ArcAttack, who have harnessed the power of lightning and are using it to create music... FOR SCIENCE! All of us nerds (science nerds and music nerds alike) over here at AE are super-excited about it, and we’re sure you’ll love it too!

Tags: Cinderella ArcAttack AQW Armors balance Fixes

July 06, 2011

Performance and Art Updates

Hey all! Thank you for making EpicDuel’s Delta release amazing- we really couldn’t have done it without you. It’s awesome to see how many of you defeated my Armor Hazard creation (thanks for that, Ms. Descarl never actually paid me, although I suppose being alive is payment in and of itself...). Because server stability and performance are top priority, this week is going to be primarily about fixes and balance improvements!

Ninja Update!

*whoosh* Did you see that? Late last week we rolled out a “ninja update”- you’ll notice that Titan and Nightwraith are now carrying the Independence weapons, and we also rolled an update to the game engine. The game engine update may have caused problems for some of you, and improved things for others. The game is running more smoothly on our end, though, so it’s ripe for some performance updates!

LAAAAAAG!

Unfortunately, I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to say we’ve completely eliminated lag from the game- even if we give the server hamsters intravenous caffeine injections (believe me, we’ve looked into it). And while we won’t know for sure if our lag problems will be solved with this update, Titan’s at least going to try!

That said, the Lag Monster is a tricky beast, causing numerous other errors ranging from harmless visual bugs to skipped turns.  Titan is also working on a solution for the bugs that are effecting battle.  These problems are especially hard to recreate because they usually need a server full of 800 people to show up, a scenario that's impossible to recreate on the test server.

Back to bug smashing. *squish*

Renovations

A few of the screens are getting a visual lift too- specifically Valestra’s bar. With all the tokens from the achievements she sells, Valestra’s been able to hire a contractor to come in and fix up the joint. Come on down, check it out, and maybe settle in for a refreshing Energy Potion!

Balancing Act

A lot of you have been complaining about the balance of the new classes.  In testing, we were all pretty equal using all 6 classes, and very different builds.  However, even hundreds of battles with a handful of testers can't uncover the wide-scale balance issues discovered by the rest of the community. That said, we are going to implement a few changes- we haven’t finalized them yet, so they may not all be this update. We aren’t doing this so that everyone class changes to the  current flavor-of-the-month, but to make the game fun for everybody. Remember, we have been buffing and nerfing classes since Alpha, way before class change was even a feature.  We sincerely want a variety of classes and builds- not to make one build overpowered over everybody else. That said, each class has its strengths and weaknesses, and some strategies are more effective than others. In PvP, this is unavoidable and not something that should necessarily be changed. The point of balance is not to make everyone the same, but to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed.

Because we are still testing proposed changes to the classes, we don't want to announce anything specific at this time.  Look for a specific list of buffs/nerfs/adjustments as testing progresses.

This should be obvious to people who play competative games that require constant balance, but it might be worth mentioning: Class attributes and skills are subject to change and can possibly be nerfed and/or buffed over time. You will not be refunded on Varuim,Credits or Artix Points if you are unhappy with the changes.  It's much more useful to us to post why the changes hurt or help your class and help us with the balancing process by posting your suggestions in the AE Forums.

Tags: Delta Valestra maps balance lag performance Cinderella

April 22, 2011

Tags: Nightwraith Netflix Offers Enhancements balance Central Station Naomi contest

April 08, 2011

Eggzooka Egg-stacy!

To celebrate the beginning of the Spring season, we are introducing the Eggzookas.  These ferocious, wabbit-face auxiliaries are capable of dealing intense damage and feature amazing stat bonuses. 

But how will you acquire these beauties?  Both the energy and physical Eggzookas will be avaible with purchase of the 10,000 Varium package or in-game from Titan and Nightwraith.  Get them before they're gone!

Level Up!  Again!

Numbers will once again go up as we raise the level cap to 33!  It may seem far away, but all the level 32 have been clamoring for this for ages.  It's not an easy journey, but once you get there, it's totally worth it!

To make life easier for those eager to reach the level cap and get the most out of the new Eggzookas, we've introduced a few features to make the leveling process less of a grind. 

Epic Power Hour!

Starting at 10:00PM ET and 10:00AM ET, players will receive DOUBLE XP from all victories for an hour!  This also means that players using XP Boost will receive QUADRUPLE XP!  This puts level 33 easily within reach.

Level Ranges and Encumberance:

To keep the latest and greatest weapons from being out of the range of hardworking players, we have introduced a level range requirement to weapons.  You will now be able to equip a weapon as early as 4 levels prior to the highest requirement, as long as you meet the stat requirements.  However, there is a catch...

We have introduced a restriction to this feature called Encumberance.  You may equip a weapon before you meet the highest level requirement, BUT you will take one point of damage reduction for each level you are below the highest requirement.

Actuall, this block of text explains it better:

This new feature applies to Primary, Sidearm, and Auxiliary weapon types.  Armor, Robot, Bike, and Booster are unaffected. 

Focus Change

Since raising the level cap makes it easier to pour more and more points into one attribute, throwing off balance, we have removed the Focus damage bonus and rewrote the calculations for increasing stat effectiveness.  This means after a certain point, it becomes increasingly difficult to gain more damage and defense.  This will prevent one-sided builds that favor loading up on one stat for an almost guranteed victory.  This change is largely experimental and it can be adjusted as it's been through some more thorough battle testing.

Please note that while the player damage bonus from Focus is removed, Focus will still directly affect Bot damage.

Tags: Titan Nightwraith spring bunny egg Easter Bazooka focus balance